Ctg businessman sent to jail upon surrender

A Chittagong court yesterday sent a businessman to jail in a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on charge of embezzling Tk 72 crore from Jamuna Bank Ltd.

The accused businessman is Md Abu Sayed Samrat, 38, managing director of Sayed Food Limited and owner of Siddique Traders in the city's Khatunganj area.

The court of Chittagong Metropolitan Sessions Judge Md Shahe Noor sent him to jail after he surrendered before the court, said Inspector Amran Hossain of the ACC.

“Earlier, he secured bail from High Court for six weeks and surrendered before the court as the bail ended on Monday,” said Inspector Amran Hossain.

The other accused of the case -- Manjurul Ahsan Chowdhury, former manager of Jamuna Bank's Khatunganj branch -- is on the run, added the ACC inspector.

Accusing the duo, the case was lodged by ACC Assistant Director (AD) Sirajul Islam with Kotwali Police Station on July 7 this year as both embezzled TK 72 crore from the bank in collaboration.

According to the case statement, Abu Sayed opened a bank account at Khatunganj branch under the name of his business on January 25, 2011 and opened a Letter of Credit (LC) worth 6,760,000 US dollars on November 1, 2011 in a bid to import 20,000 tonnes of wheat from Australia.

The wheat had been imported to Bangladesh and sold to the markets, but Abu Sayed did not pay back the money to the bank. He embezzled a total of Tk 61,29,84,921 from August 10, 2011 to May 31, 2012 from the bank.

Moreover, Abu Sayed also misappropriated Tk 10,62,18,195 that was issued from the same branch against Siddique Traders for trading sugar, said the case statement.

AD Sirajul Islam told The Daily Star, “Jamuna Bank informed the ACC of the incident and the ACC found the duo guilty during probe. We are trying to arrest Manjurul ..."