To file cases against 20 Hallmark-Sonali officials next week
The Anti-Corruption Commission is preparing to file cases next week against about 20 officials of Hallmark Group and Sonali Bank over embezzlement of around Tk 3,547 crore.
‘We are going to file cases against officials of Hallmark and five other companies and Sonali Bank over the allegation of misappropriation of around Tk 3,547 crore
from Ruposhi Bangla hotel branch of the bank,’ an ACC official told New Age on Tuesday.
‘The commission will file the cases under the Money Laundering and Anti-Corruption Commission Act’, he said.
He added that an ACC inquiry had already found enough evidence of the misappropriation for filing the cases.
The official said that Sonali Bank, which did not file any case in connection with the embezzlement, had decided to lodge complaints with the ACC in a few days.
‘After receiving the complaints, the commission will take necessary legal actions,’ he said.
The ACC’s inquiry found that Hallmark Group had embezzled Tk 2,686 crore from the bank’s Ruposhi Bangla hotel branch from 2010 till May this year.
Meanwhile, the commission questioned six high officials of Sonali Bank, including two deputy general managers and four assistant general managers, on Tuesday over the
embezzlement. The officers included deputy general managers Ahsan Ullah and Begum Azizur Rahman, assistant general managers Bijan Kumar Pal, Abul Bashar Miji, Delwar
Hossain Abbasi and Anwar Hossain Khan.
A six-member ACC inquiry team, led by deputy director Mir Joynul Abedin Shibli, interrogated them for seven hours from 10:00am.
The commission will interrogate six more officials of Sonali Bank, including two general managers and four assistant general managers.
They are: general managers Morshed Alam Khandaker and Naser Ahmed, assistant general managers Abdul Momin Patwary, Shyamol Kanti Nath, M Shahjahan and Samima Akhter.
The state-owned Sonali Bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch had lent Tk 3,547 crore to the Hallmark Group, T and Brothers, Paragon Group, Nakshi Knit, DN Sports and Khan
Jahan Ali Sweaters Limited in total violation of banking rules. Of the amount, Hallmark alone swindled Tk 2,686 crore between 2010 and May 2012 by using fake
documents.
Sonali Bank has so far suspended 17 officials of various ranks because of their suspected involvement in the scam. Two other officials of the bank were also made
officers on special duty.
On August 19, the Bangladesh Bank asked Sonali Bank to suspend 31 of its officials by August 30 for their alleged involvement in the illegal lending of Tk 3,547 crore
to little-known Hallmark Group and five other companies.
The ACC, after receiving a letter from Bangladesh Bank on July 15, formed the six-member inquiry team.
Courtesy of New Age
