The Anti-Corruption Commission yesterday arrested an incumbent general manager of Bangladesh Bank in a case filed over misappropriation of Tk 325 crore of AB Bank from 2011-13 when he was a deputy managing director of the private bank.
Though the Rising Steel Mills (RSM) had failed to reimburse a big amount of debt, the then DMD of AB Bank Badrul Haque Khan and the then general manager of the bank’s principal branch M Fazlur Rahman continued to sanction loan to the company against insufficient security money between 2010 and 2013.
According to the ACC, BNP Joint Secretary General Aslam Chowdhury, who has been arrested in a sedition case, RSM’s Chairman Jamila Naznin Mawla, managing director of RSM Amzad Hossain Chowdhury and director of RSM Jasim Uddin Chowdhury in collaboration with Badrul and Fazlur “pocketed” the money.
A case was filed with Double Mooring Police Station in Chittagong on Saturday.
The ACC arrested Badrul from his Dhanmondi house and Jasim from Chittagong early yesterday.
According to the case statement, Jasim, Jamila and Amzad opened an account with the AB Bank’s Agrabad Branch in Chittagong in 2008.
On January 2010, the RSM opened a Letter of Credit (LC) of Tk 40.95 crore to import a ship and sold it on the open market.
But the company had paid only half of the loan and kept Tk 20.93 crore as an outstanding loan.
The RSM, on April 28, 2011, again applied for opening LC to import another scrap ship, MV Express.
Manager of AB Bank’s Agrabad Branch Ishaq Chowdhury sent the proposal to the then assistant deputy managing director of the bank’s principal branch M Fazlur Rahman which gave interim approval and gave condition to the RSM to pay 20 percent margin.
The case statement says the company did not pay the margin rather sold the ship after import and pocketed Tk 26.45 crore.
Even after that, RSM again applied to the AB Bank to import another scrap vessel, VLCC LARA, on February 12, 2012.
Ishaq forwarded the proposal to the then Deputy Managing Director of AB Bank Badrul who was aware of the outstanding debt.
Badrul, however, gave interim approval to RSM’s application and sanctioned Tk 165.52 crore on February 16, 2012. The scrap vessel was sold, but the loan was not paid, the statement reads.
On September 2012, RSM paid its outstanding Tk 20.93 crore borrowed in 2010.
Meanwhile, the company and its guarantor Aslam Chowdhury mortgaged only a 2727.63 decimal land which was worth Tk 17.40 crore against the outstanding loan.
On August 25, 2013, RSM applied for another LC to import another scrap vessel, MT Bikash Well Tanker, worth Tk 134.34 crore.
Though the company owed AB Bank a huge amount of outstanding money, both Badrul and Fazlur gave interim approval to loan, misusing their power, says Manik Lal Das, deputy assistant director of ACC.
On June 20 this year, a Chittagong court sent Aslam to jail after law enforcers showed him arrested in eight cases filed for loan default.
Meanwhile, ACC arrested manager of Al-Arafah Islami Bank’s Reazuddin Bazar Branch in Chittagong Shawkat Islam for allegedly embezzling Tk 11 lakh of a customer of the bank when he was in Cox’s Bazar branch of the bank.
Source: The Daily Star
