Embezzling Tk 137cr: ACC sues ex-MD, businessman
The Anti-Corruption Commission yesterday filed a case against former managing director of Basic Bank Limited Kazi Fakhrul Islam and Managing Director of Bay Navigations Limited Faisal Murad Ibrahim for misappropriating around Tk 137 crore.
Mohammad Sirajul Huq, assistant director of the ACC, filed the case with Motijheel Police Station yesterday, Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, a spokesman for the ACC, told The Daily Star.
This is the 58th case related to the Basic Bank loan scam that took place between 2009 and 2014 when Sheikh Abdul Hye Bacchu had chaired the board of the state-owned bank.
According to the case statement, Faisal opened letters of credit worth $95 lakh with the Dilkusha Branch of BASIC Bank in November, 2011 to import the ship, MV Crystal Sapphire.
After getting the loan, the client failed to return it.
The bank then kept the imported ship as mortgaged property against the loan in question.
But according to an assessment in December 2016, the ship was estimated to be worth around Tk 20 to Tk 22 crore, much lower than the disbursed fund.
The ship is now out of order, according to an ACC statement.
The bank will have to provide vat, tax and arrears to the port and government after selling the ship.
Besides, the salaries of the staffs of the ship will have to be provided from the sale.
The case statement also said there were no collateral securities kept against the loan taken by Faisal.
During the investigation, the ACC also discovered that the client had broken the conditions of the personal guarantee set by the bank.
The client promised to submit sales and stock statement regularly every month, but did not do so, the investigation said.
The investigation also found that the branch and the credit committee of the head office had sent the loan proposal to the managing director of the bank with negative recommendations.
But the bank's MD placed the proposal before the board and it subsequently approved the loans.
Earlier, ACC had asked former BASIC Bank chairman Sheikh Abdul Hye Bacchu not to leave the country so that his interrogation continues without any interruption.
In 2017, the anti-graft body quizzed Bacchu on December 4 and again on December 6 in connection with at least 10 out of 57 cases filed over the embezzlement of Tk 2,044 crore from the state-run bank.
On January 8 of this year, ACC interrogated Bacchu for the third occasion, this time in connection with 56 cases filed over embezzlement of Tk 2,036 crore from the bank.
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