Hall-Mark Loan Scam
Janata, Agrani too partners in crime
Finds central bank inspection
State-run Janata Bank and Agrani Bank breached banking rules to provide loans to the textile company Hall-Mark Group in connivance with Sonali Bank, helping embezzle crores of depositors’ money, the central bank has found. Janata’s corporate branch located at Janata Bhaban and its local office in the city, the principal branch of Agrani Bank Ltd and the Sonali Bank Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch worked in league with officials of Hall-Mark.
The findings came in a Bangladesh Bank inspection on foreign trade activities of the Janata corporate branch.
When accounts of the Anawara Mills and Max Spinning Mills were opened on June 8 last year the owner of Anawara Spinning Mills was identified in the papers as Md Jahangir Alam and the owner of Max Spinning Mills as Mir Zakaria.
In both cases, Tanvir Mahmud, managing director of Bobby Spinning Mills and also managing director of Hall-Mark Group, was the introducer.
Janata started purchasing bills of Anawara Mills on June 16, 2011, and of Max Spinning Millls on June 26, against letters of credit (LCs).
Hall-Mark Fashion Ltd and its interest-linked company opened local LCs with the Sonali Bank Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch in favour of Anawara Spinning Mills and Max Spinning Mills to import yarn locally.
The Janata Bhaban corporate branch sent the bills to the Sonali Bank Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch. When the Ruposhi Bangla branch gave the bill acceptance, the Janata Bhaban corporate branch bought the bills and the money was credited into the accounts of Anawara Spinning Mills and Max Spinning Mills. Clients involved here withdrew the most of the money.
The central bank found the branch purchased bills of Anawara Spinning Mills, worth Tk 37.60 crore and of Max Spinning Mills worth Tk 46.08 crore breaching credit rules as some of the bills of the two companies were overdue.
The branch did not inspect whether the two companies existed before providing such a huge amount of loan facilities. The branch also failed to provide any information on the companies’ machineries.
It seemed to the central bank inspection team that officials of Sonali Bank and Janata Bank and the two companies had worked in connivance and embezzled a huge amount of money by making up accommodation bills.
Actually, the money was embezzled by the textile company Hall-Mark Group.
The team held branch manager Abdus Salam Azad and general manager and foreign exchange in-charge SM Abu Hena Mostafa Kamal responsible for the financial irregularity.
The team said the Janata Bhaban corporate branch bought export bills acknowledged by the Sonali Bank Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch without verifying the existence or production capacity of Anawara Spinning Mills and Max Spinning Mills.
It found that the loading point and delivery point of the products is the same. Through creation of accommodation bill the export was completed on paper without exchange of products.
The central bank carried out a special inspection on the activities of the principal branch of Agrani Bank Ltd. It found that the principal branch had abused its power and purchased local bills worth about Tk 156.04 crore of the companies such as BTL, Mahin Textile and Pinnacle Textile.
The branch bought 105 local bills worth Tk 108.45 crore of the three companies following the bills’ acknowledgement by the Sonali Bank Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch to supply products to Hall-Mark Group, Paragon, Nakshi and some other companies. Of them, 45 bills worth Tk 42.18 crore have been overdue.
As the principal branch and the headquarters are located in the same building the branch always takes approval from the managing director in loan sanctioning. But such approval from the headquarters was not taken by the branch although the limit in buying local bills exceeds. These companies have been given opportunity repeatedly to create liability although these three companies have overdue bills.
Although the branch bought local bills worth a huge amount of money the branch authority could not provide any report to the inspection team to prove that the production capacity of the three companies has been verified, according to Bangladesh Bank’s probe reports.
It also found that Pinnacle Textile Ltd was registered on December 13, 2011 but the branch first started to buy bills of the company on January 19. The branch authority could not explain as to how the company could start production in such a short period after getting registration and deliver the products.
While inspecting the factories of the company in Gazipur, the central bank team did not find any spinning machine that could produce yarn from cotton. As a result, they did not come by any answer as to how yarn had been delivered without any yarn-producing machine.
Eight circular knitting machines, which can produce fabric from yarn, were found there but no production took place.
The team reached the conclusion that Sonali Bank Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch, Agrani Bank principal branch and clients’ companies embezzled a huge amount of money by creating accommodation bills through illegal means.
The Sonali Bank Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch acknowledged bills worth hundreds of crores of taka and the Agrani Bank principal branch created the opportunity to embezzle the money by purchasing the bills.
The central bank team said branch manager and general manager Mizanur Rahman Khan, deputy general manager (foreign exchange) Johorlal Roy, assistant general manager (foreign exchange) Md Abdul Aziz Dewan and SPO (manager-export) Habibur Rahman were responsible for the embezzlement of the bank money.
The central bank also conducted inspection of the Dhaka local office of Janata Bank Ltd.
It found that the branch did not include the required information in the “Know Your Customer” profile while opening a current account for Sohel Spinning Mills Ltd. The inspection found suspected transaction to the tune of a huge amount of cash being withdrawn through cheques on various occasions soon after depositing of the money of purchased bills in the accounts. Although this type of withdrawal requires STR, the branch did not do any STR, thus breaching anti-money laundering laws.
During account opening the company has been termed as yarn producer and exporter. But the required raw materials to produce yarn were not imported through the bank and only export bills were purchased. The branch did not collect any information whether the company had imported the required raw materials.
Normally, one bank issues letters of credit and another bank advises in case of imports and exports. But the Ruposhi Bangla branch worked as both issuing and advising bank in the case of buying a huge amount of export bills of Sohel Spinning Mills by the Janata Bank local office.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
