Gani allegedly launched a drive recently to collect money from different station officers and range officers in Khulna, Dhaka and Chittagong.

"Many range officers and station officers were recently due for transfer. So far I know, they gave the chief conservator huge money to stop their transfer and his wife received the money at home," said a forest official from Chittagong.

"Money flows in natural course to the chief conservator," a Forest Department high official said. "He collects money through the departmental chain to pay the minister and other high officials related to the department," said the official who is also allegedly in Gani's chain.

Sources in the Forest Department said forest officials make money by destroying the forests.

High officials like the chief conservator take money for the transfers of the department staffs and providing jobs. They also take bribes from the check posts set up for the protection of the forests. Another means of making quick money is different development projects of the Forest Department, the sources added.

Sources said there are 25 lucrative posts of station officer in Rangamati, 20 in Chittagong, five in Sylhet, 10 in Mymensingh and Tangail, and eight in the Sundarbans.

Sources said at present the most money generating divisions are Chittagong North, Chittagong South, Sundarbans, Cox's Bazar, Sylhet and Dhaka. A lucrative posting in the Sundarbans or Chittagong Hill Tracts is sold for Tk 10-20 lakh, said high officials in the Forest Department.

Gani's wife recently collected more than Tk 1 crore from different forest divisions, said an official. Gani, however, did not deposit the sum with any bank for fear of the ongoing anti-corruption drive.

In 2006, the forest ministry warned him for abnormal transfer activities in the department.

Earlier, a departmental case was filed against Gani in 2002 when he was the conservator of forests in Khulna Circle for selling out 368 lots of forest wood without any auction showing only Tk 33 lakh as the price.

Sources said Gani gulped not less than Tk 3 crore 51 lakh which an open tender would have yielded.

Gani was found guilty in the departmental investigation and the erstwhile Bureau of Anti-Corruption filed a case against him in January 2003. But no action was taken against him; he was rather promoted as the deputy chief conservator of forests in 2004.

Gani allegedly had the blessings of three forest ministers of both the Awami League and the BNP-Jamaat alliance governments--Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, Shajahan Siraj and Tariqul Islam.

Sources said before becoming the chief conservator Gani also made a good link with the Hawa Bhaban through former prime minister Khaleda Zia's APS-2 Abdul Matin. Both Matin and Gani hail from Comilla.

Gani allegedly made around Tk 2 crore by appointing 83 forest guards in four forest divisions.

Several sources said Gani embezzled money from three forest development projects--the Sundarbans biodiversity project, the Noakhali coastal afforestation project, and the Nishargo project.

He allegedly did not return a pricey Canon EOS-100 camera of the Forest Department when he was in charge of the Sundarbans division.

Gani's wife Mohsena Ara used to visit the range offices of both the East and West divisions of the Sundarbans once a month to collect money from the forest officials.

"Osman Gani bought houses in Dhaka with the money he made during a decade's stint in the Sundarbans," sources said.

It is alleged that Gani maintained his money spinning chain through six officers of deputy ranger and ranger ranks in the Rangamati, Chittagong, Dhaka, Sundarbans, Bogra and the Coastal zones.

Sources said the department used to centrally collect more than Tk 2 crore every month from Cox's Bazar, Sundarbans, Chittagong North and South, and Rangamati forest divisions.

"The chief conservator would send shares of the bribes to his higher authorities and close aides working in important posts in the department," said a source.

Gani also made huge money by allowing land grabbers to build structures on forestland at the Bhawal National Park.

A few forest officials recently informed the Ministry of Environment and Forest anonymously of Gani's corruption.

Sources in the forest department said a system has been established in the department through which the chief conservator automatically gets money even without any coercion.

"The British had introduced the system to earn revenue from the forests instead of conserving them. The forest officials' approach towards the forests still remains the same--they only know how to make money out of the forests," a young forest official told The Daily Star, requesting anonymity.

It is alleged that the station officers at the forest check posts never give clearance to a truckload of wood without money.

"A huge amount of money is collected at the forest check posts and the chief conservator and other high officials get the share of the money on monthly basis," said the officer.

"As an officer has to spend huge money to get a posting, he sells trees to recover that amount," he said, adding that in this way all big and old trees have disappeared from all the forests in the country.

Due to such unbridled corruption of all forest officials, all old trees of the forests of the country have almost vanished except a few in the Sundarbans.

Meanwhile, the joint forces yesterday conducted massive searches to round up Gani's two brothers-in-law Khair and Mintu. Khair is also a forest department employee.

Sources said Gani used to smuggle timber from different forests to different sawmills in the city including the two on Maneswar Road in Dhanmondi where the joint forces recovered huge quantity of timber early yesterday. Khair and Mintu used to coordinate the smuggling.

The joint forces could not arrest anyone.

A joint forces team was measuring the quantity of the timber at the time of filing this report at 8:00pm.

The forces yesterday also raided the six-storey Maneswar Road house of Gani's wife Mohsena Ara but could not find any documents.

Khair, Mintu and Gani's expatriate father-in-law used to live in the building.

"Relatives of Gani have removed documents and movable properties from the Maneswar Road house when we were raiding Gani's Uttara residence and his locker in a bank in Dhanmondi," a joint forces official told The Daily Star seeking anonymity.