Syed Abed Ali, a former driver for a Public Service Commission chairman, owns assets worth over Tk 50 crore, the CID found in its primary investigation.

The assets include a six-storey building in Mirpur's Paikpara, three flats in West Shewrapara, a Toyota Harrier SUV and a Toyota Premio, along with cash in bank accounts, an investigator told The Daily Star yesterday.

The Criminal Investigation Department has already seized the vehicles.

Abed was arrested on Monday in a case filed for leaking the questions of 30 public service recruitment exams, including the BCS, over the last 12 years.

His name came to the fore after Channel 24 ran a report on question leaks in the exams conducted by the PSC.

The CID arrested at least 16 others, including Abed's son Syed Sohanur Rahman Siam, relief and disaster management secretary of Dhaka North Chhatra League; and six PSC officials.

"Abed Ali recently sold two more flats in the West Shewrapara building. We suspect he has more property … We are looking into it," the CID official said.

Working as a chauffeur, Abed, who is from West Botla village in Madaripur's Dasar upazila, amassed assets worth millions.

The eldest of three siblings, he left Madaripur for Dhaka after his father's death and began working as a porter. Later, with the help of a childhood friend, he started pulling rickshaws while living in a mess on Indira Road in the capital.

In 1997, he obtained a class-eight certificate from the Open University and managed to secure a job as the driver for the PSC chairman on December 2 that year.

That was when his fate began to change, locals and investigators said.

Within five years of joining, Abed got involved with a syndicate, along with some PSC officials, who were leaking question papers of various PSC recruitment exams to earn money.

He was dismissed from his job in 2014, after the allegations against him of leaking question papers in a recruitment test for first-class posts (non-cadre) were proved.

A departmental case was filed against Abed on April 22, 2014, as his active involvement was found in the leak of question papers for the post of "Assistant Maintenance Engineer" for the then Ministry of Information and Communication Technology in the non-cadre category.

"Abed has earned a bad name for many illegal activities and he is involved in habitual misdeeds," the PSC report said, adding that he got the job using a fake permanent address – Sirajganj instead of Madaripur.

According to the CID investigators, Abed continued to work with the syndicate even after losing his job.

His son Siam, who was relieved from his post in the BCL on Monday, used to abet his father in the crime.

CID officials and locals said that Abed also earned money by lobbying for various candidates to get jobs in many government offices.

Locals said he built a duplex in his ancestral home in West Botla village at a cost of around Tk 3 crore, while his elder and younger brothers continue to live in mud-floored two-room tin-shed houses.

He also has a mango orchard in front of his house and built a mosque at a cost of Tk 1.5 crore, they told our Shariatpur correspondent, adding that he owns at least 25 three-wheelers.

Abed even tried to construct a cattle farm with over 100 cows on the right side of a bridge adjacent to Kamalapur Bazar in Dasar upazila. On the left side, he had put up pillars and laid the foundation for business establishments.

However, as it is government land, the upazila administration stopped both constructions.

Speaking to The Daily Star, Abed's younger brother, Javed Ali, said, "My father was a farmer and my two brothers are also earning their livings by farming. I work as an easy-bike driver to run my family."

About his brother, he said, "If he is guilty, I want him punished."

In Dhaka, Abed has been living with his wife, two sons and a daughter in a flat in the 10-storey "Bismillah Tower" on West Shewrapara's Wasa Road for the past seven years.

Other residents of the building told this newspaper that Abed's family members left the flat after his arrest. They added that he owns three flats in the building and has two cars.

Locals said that he would introduce himself as a car trader and they heard he also owns a six-storey building in Mirpur's Paikpara.

Recently, Abed was vying for the chairman post of Dasar upazila, the polls of which were postponed.

In his Facebook ID, he recently posted videos of campaigning, urging locals to support him in the upcoming election.

In a video post in June, he spoke about owning a seven-story building and an 11-storey building in Dhaka, and about setting up a mosque and cemetery on 71 decimals of land.

"I have now started constructing a house, which already costs Tk 3 crore," the video showed him telling a gathering in the upazila.