The Anti-Corruption Commission has found that the Hallmark Group had laundered Tk 1,000 crore illegally by using at least 50 bank accounts in the last three years, an ACC official told New Age on Tuesday.
He said that the group’s 18 companies used at least 30 local public and private as well as foreign banks to launder the money. The ACC will file at least 50 cases next week against 61 people including Hallmark’s managing director Tanvir Mahmud, its chairman and his wife Jasmine Islam, general manager Tushar Ahmed and some Sonali Bank officials, he said.
The ACC will complete its inquiry next week after interrogating 35 more bank officials and Syed Modasser Ali, the prime minister’s health affairs advisor, said an ACC official.
After filing the cases, the ACC will investigate the embezzlement of Tk 1,686.14 crore by the Hallmark Group apart from the laundered money of Tk 1,000 crore, said an official.
The six-member inquiry committee of the ACC is now totally engaged with the inquiry into the Hallmark scam, he said.
The six-member inquiry committee is headed by ACC’s deputy director Mir Joynal Abedin Shibli. Deputy director Akhter Hamid, assistant directors Mashiur Rahman and Nazmus Sadat, and deputy assistant directors Majibur Rahman and Joynal Abedin are in the inquiry committee.
ACC’s commissioner Bodiuzzaman and director general (inquiry and investigation) MA Salahuddin will oversee the inquiry committee, said an official.
The ACC will file the cases under the Money Laundering Prevention Act, he said.
The ACC, after receiving a letter from the Bangladesh Bank on July 15, started an inquiry into the misappropriation of about Tk 3,547 crore by the Hallmark Group from the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of Sonali Bank.
The ACC has already questioned 31 people, including 21 Sonali Bank officers, about their alleged link with the Hallmark-Sonali Bank loan scam, the country’s biggest ever financial scandal.
Courtesy of New Age
