Man accused of laundering Tk 1,400cr arrested at HSIA
A businessman accused in 29 money laundering cases was arrested from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport while fleeing to Italy on Saturday night.
The cases were filed by the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) with Dhaka's Paltan Police Station in November 2019 against Shahidul Alam and five others.
Between 2016 and 2017, the gang had laundered about Tk 1,400 crore using fake import documents and the names of four non-existent companies, according to the CIID's investigation report.
They imported alcohol, cigarettes, LED TV and old photocopy machines in 29 consignments by declaring those as capital machinery for preparing animal feed.
The items carried duties ranging from 125 to 612 percent, whereas capital machinery has only 3 percent duty.
Of the 29 consignments, 12 containing liquor, LED TV and cigarette worth about Tk 132 crore were seized in March 2017 by the Chattogram Custom House while the gang was trying to release those without any kind of scanning.
It was then that the issue of money laundering came to the fore.
The four companies paid about Tk 30 crore through the banking channel against the goods and laundered Tk 1,396.14 crore through illegal channels, the CIID report said.
After the investigation, the CIID filed 29 cases against six people in the forgery: Alam and Suruj Mia, the owners of the four companies; Muhammad Selim, manager (operation) of IFIC Bank's Shantinagar branch; MA Zafar, Maksudur Rahman Sumon and Morshedul Alam, all involved with the clearing and forwarding agency.
Alam, who was nabbed by immigration police, was yesterday produced in court, according to Shakil Khandakar, deputy director of the CIID. The court sent him to jail.
"Now it will be possible to arrest the other members of this gang and find out the final destination of the illegally imported goods," he told The Daily Star.
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