Ctg customs finds evidence of money laundering against exporter Bangla Food and Beverage Ltd

Chattogram Custom House officials have found evidence that an exporter tried to export one tonne of food items by fraudulently showing that two containers had 22 tonnes worth 100,000 dollars.

Customs officials said exporter Bangla Food and Beverage Limited, a Dhaka-based company, was laundering black money in the name of exporting food products from the country and receiving cash incentives from the government against the export.

Meanwhile, the officials are also investigating export of goods shown to be worth Tk 23.84 crore in 48 consignments between January 2019 to December 2020 by the company, they said.

Most of those consignments were exported to Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates and customs officials suspected that the same forgery took place with those consignments, they said.

According to  the customs documents, the two seized containers were being taken to Chattogram port jetty from the private depot -- Eastern Logistics -- on Tuesday night for shipping.

The documents also said, a Clearing and Forwarding (C&F) Agent -- R Islam Agency -- brought the two containers of goods to Eastern Logistics Depot in Patenga on December 21. The consignments were scheduled to leave for Sucesso Felice Trading (M) in Malaysia before being seized.

Rezaul Karim, assistant commissioner of customs, told The Daily Star, "Money laundering and criminal cases are also being filed against the company. It will be ascertained whether customs officials, shipping agents and depot officials are involved with the exporters and C&F agents in the forgery."

"According to the invoice, the consignments were supposed to contain 545 boxes of various food items including puffed rice, biscuits, tomato crackers and spices but we found it almost empty. If the consignment could leave from the port, the company would have gotten an incentive of around Tk 8.5 lakh at the rate of 10 percent of total export volume," he said, adding that the exporters also take the chance to launder black money equal to the export price.

The Daily Star tried to contact Rafiqul Islam, the proprietor of C&F Agent-R Islam Agency, and Monir Hossain, managing director of Bangla Food and Beverage Limited over phone, but they did not respond.