ACC okays charge sheet against nine

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has approved the charge sheet in a case involving swindling of Tk 45 crore from Mercantile Bank by Mohammad Elias Brothers (MEB) Group.

The ACC has accused nine people in the case, including Nurul Absar, chairman of the group, and Shamsul Alam, managing director.

When contacted, Mohammad Shouib Riad, a spokesperson of the group, said MEB Group respected the law and would fight the case in the court.

He said the business group had already paid the down payment to the bank for the rescheduling of the loan.

MEB Group has loans amounting to Tk 890 crore outstanding with a number of banks, according to the charge sheet.

The ACC probe, conducted by its Assistant Director Mamunur Rashid Choudhury, found that MEB Group faked imports of semi-refined oil from local firm Marine Vegetables Oils. With no goods changing hands in reality, both companies swindled money from the Khatunganj branch of Mercantile Bank by way of showing transaction on papers.

Some bank officials were also found to be involved in the process, according to the charge sheet. Others accused by the ACC include Tipu Sultan, chairman of Marine Vegetables Oils; Jahir Ahmed, managing director of Marine Vegetables Oils; Nanda Dulal Bhattacharya, former executive vice president of Mercantile Bank; Mejbah Uddin Ahmed, former first vice president; Moinul Kashem Chowdhury, former principal officer; Anowar Hossain, former branch manager, and Sarder Mohammed Jubaer, former manager of the bank.

In April last year, the ACC filed the case with Double Mooring police station in Chittagong. Founded in 1962 as a commodity trader, MEB later spread its wings to textiles, glass, plastics, paper mills, auto bricks, edible oil and beverages.

It had set up one and a half dozens of companies, of which only six are now in operations. The rest were either shuttered or became non-operative because of financial constraints.

The group blamed its fall on the intense competition among a number of commodity traders that compelled them to sell goods at prices lower than the import costs between 2001 and 2010.

The debt-ridden Chittagong-based business group topped the list of top 100 loan defaulters in the country, according to a list revealed in parliament recently.