CID sues Aziz co-op chairman
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police has sued M Tajul Islam, chairman of Aziz Co-operative Commerce and Finance Credit Society Limited, in a money laundering case on charges of embezzling Tk 300 crore and siphoning off around a hundred crore of customers’ money, to Canada.
A CID team earlier arrested Tajul, 69, from Motijheel on Wednesday.
“Tajul amassed around Tk 300 crore from 11,425 customers, which was collected from 80 branches of the organisation,” CID’s special superintendent Molla Nazrul Islam told reporters at a press briefing at its headquarters in Malibagh yesterday.
However, it had approval from the Department of Cooperatives for only 26 branches, he said.
On Thursday, a Dhaka court put Tajul on two days’ remand in another case filed in May for allegedly embezzling Tk 16 lakh from a customer.
A money laundering case was filed with Ramna Police Station against Tajul, his elder son Sajjadul Islam Tanvir and his employee Zakir Hossain on Friday.
At the press briefing, Nazrul said Tajul embezzled money, assuring people of giving interest and profit against their deposits.
“But Tajul and Zakir transferred Tk 300 crore to the accounts of 12 different banks through 77 transactions. Those accounts belong to Tajul and three other organisations of Tajul’s wife and their elder son.”
Nazrul said his two sons are Canadian citizens and CID has found that Tajul also siphoned off around Tk 100 crore to them in Canada.
CID claimed that the organisation also built a shopping mall in Siddhirganj of Narayanganj with clients’ money, which is a money laundering crime.
Aziz Co-operative Commerce and Finance Credit Society Limited started operations in 1984.
Tajul joined the organisation in 2005.
Nazrul said the organisation was illegally using the word “bank” to its name and running banking operations without any authorisation, under the guise of cooperatives.
According to the Bank Company Law and Cooperative Societies Act, a company cannot accept deposits or disbursements from public without a license from Bangladesh Bank, while cooperatives cannot have more than one branch.
Comments