The former board of directors and officials of International Leasing and Financial Services Limited (ILFSL) were involved in loan forgery amounting to Tk 318 crore, found investigators of the Anti-Corruption Commission.

Proshanta Kumar Halder, the fugitive former managing director of NRB Global Bank, played a key role in the forgeries.

The ACC has found the involvement of 29 persons including ILFSL's former Chairman MA Hashem, former MD Rashedul Haque, nine members of boards, Halder's relatives and associates in the forgeries.

The enquiry reports have been approved and the investigators will now file seven separate cases against the individuals, confirmed a top official of the ACC on condition of anonymity.

So far, ACC's Deputy Director Gulshan Anowar Prodhan and deputy assistant directors Afnan Jannat Keya and Ferdous Rahman yesterday filed five cases against G&G Enterprize, Tamim and Talha Brothers, Greenline Development, MTB Marine and P&L International; ILFSL's former directors and officials for misappropriating about Tk 230 crore of ILFSL.

The investigators found G&G Enterprize, owned by Gopal Chandra Ganguly, applied for a term loan of Tk 30 crore on June 18, 2015 to ILFSL's managing director.

Without any scrutiny, a loan proposal was prepared three days later, which was signed off by Haque and presented before the executive committee chaired by ILFSL's director Nasim Anwar.

The loan was approved on June 28 at the 228th board meeting, which was attended by Hashem, Nowsherul Islam, Basudev Banerjee and Mizanur Rahman.

On the same day, the loan agreement was signed. The money was transferred to Reliance Finance, now rechristened Aviva Finance.

"From there, the money was transferred to different persons and organisations," reads the first information report.

The Daily Star obtained a copy of the FIR.

In their confessional statements given under section 164, Haque, ILFSL's acting MD Abid Hasan and senior manager Rafsan Riad Chowdhury said Halder used to be present in the board meetings and was instrumental in the sanctioning of the loans.

"Most of the time, the money was transferred to the fictitious organisations of PK Halder," the FIR said.

The ACC made Halder, Ganguly, Anwar, Banerjee, Hashem, Islam, Haque, Chowdhury and ILFSL Vice-Chairman Nahida Runai accused in the loan forgery.

Last week, the ACC gave a charge sheet in a case filed against Halder for amassing wealth illegally. Halder, who came to the spotlight after the drive against illegal casinos in 2019, had accumulated about Tk 426 crore beyond his known sources of income, the ACC found.

Earlier this year, the ACC filed 15 cases against 37 for embezzling about Tk 1,150 crore from ILFSL.