30 investors claim Firstlead Securities swindled Tk 10cr
Thirty stock investors yesterday alleged that Firstlead Securities, a stockbrokerage firm of the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), has sold their shares and swindled funds of Tk 10 crore.
The investors came up with the allegation in a press briefing at the office of the Capital Market Journalists' Forum in Dhaka.
The managing director of Firstlead Securities sold all shares of the 30 stock investors who used to trade through the company's Dhaka office, said Md Ayub Khan, one of the stock investors.
"Firstlead Securities never sent any text or email to us about selling the shares.
When we asked the brokerage house about the reasons of not sending any text, it said we will soon start receiving information when any shares are sold."
"When we tried to transfer our shares to another brokerage firm, we came to know that the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) had already suspended Firstlead's trading rights," he said in a written speech at the briefing.
The stock market regulator had decided to suspend the trading activities of Firstlead last August as it had failed to pay its customers properly.
Meanwhile, Khan alleged that Firstlead was able to sell their shares even though its trading activities were suspended for using duplicate software.
In this situation, the stock investors appealed to the authorities of the Chittagong Stock Exchange on January 20 to take steps to transfer the shares to their other beneficiary owner (BO) accounts.
However, the CSE did not take any step to transfer the shares.
"Meanwhile, the Central Depository of Bangladesh informed us that we currently have no share in our BO accounts opened with Firstlead Securities," Khan said.
After that, the investors sought help from the stock market regulator with the request to take steps to save their lives, he added.
The other stock investors present at the press briefing were: Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Ali Chokidar, Md Shahidullah, Krishna Roy, Md Kamruzzaman, Saiful Islam and Mohammad Aynur Rahman.
Despite repeated attempts to contact Firstlead's Managing Director Muhitul Bari Muhith, The Daily Star could not reach him for comments by the time this report was filed.
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