hallmark loan scam - Dhaka Mirror

Tanvir on 29-day remand

Admin — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 13:04:31 +0000

Arms case filed against the Hall-Mark boss
Tanvir Mahmud, managing director of Hall-Mark Group of Industries, and Tushar Ahmed, general manager of the company, were each placed on a 24-day remand in three cases over the Sonali Bank loan scam yesterday. The Hall-Mark MD was also placed on an additional five days’ remand in an arms case.
The Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court of Dhaka passed the orders upon petitions by the Anti-Corruption Commission and Pallabi police.
Tanvir and Tushar, a brother-in-law of Tanvir, face 11 cases filed by the ACC in connection with swindling Tk 1,568 crore out of state-owned Sonali Bank using fake documents and in violation of banking rules.
Of the sum, Tk 219.07 crore was taken in favour of Anwara Spinning Mills, Tk 219.60 crore in favour of Hall-Mark Fashion and Tk 45.48 crore in favour of Hall-Mark Group although none of these companies exist in reality, said the remand petitions in the three cases.
The ACC investigators in their petitions argued that the duo needed to be remanded for interrogation to know the whereabouts of the embezzled money and also the names of the other people involved in the scam.
The petitioners sought to take Tanvir and Tushar on 110 days’ remand in the 11 cases.
But the court could hear the remand petitions in three cases, court sources said, adding that hearing on the rest of the cases will be held on a later date.
The ACC on October 4 sued seven officials of the controversial Hall-Mark and 20 officials of Sonali Bank over the fraud.
According to an audit report, the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of Sonali Bank had disbursed Tk 3,606 crore in loan to Hall-Mark and five other companies defying banking rules.
The Bangladesh Bank also revealed massive irregularities in sanctioning and disbursing of loans, especially to the little-known Hall-Mark.
During Sunday night’s arrest from a house in the capital’s Mirpur, Rapid Action Battalion recovered a foreign pistol, four bullets and a magazine from Tanvir’s possession, Rab’s media and legal wing Director Captain M Sohail told The Daily Star.
The elite force filed an arms case against Tanvir on the same night, said Abdul Latif, officer-in-charge of Pallabi Police Station.
Pallabi police yesterday filed a petition to take Tanvir on a 10-day remand in the arms case but the Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court granted five days’ remand.
Meanwhile, Subedar Mizanur Rahman of Rab-4 filed another case with Savar police against Tanvir, Tushar and 500 to 600 unknown people on charges of obstructing the law enforcers and attacking them.
Rab personnel came under attacks by several hundred guards of the company when the elite force went to arrest Tanvir at Hall-Mark factories in Savar early on Sunday, Savar police said.
TANVIR’S ARREST HAILED
Leading business associations yesterday hailed the arrest of Tanvir and Tushar.
“We applaud the government for arresting Tanvir Mahmud,” the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries said in a statement yesterday.
In the statement, nine chambers and associations urged the government to punish those who are involved in the scam directly and indirectly.
FBCCI, Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Bangladesh Textile Mills Association, Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Chittagong Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Bangladesh Chamber of Industries signed the statement

Courtesy of The Daily Star

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Hall-Mark MD arrested after daylong drive

Admin — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 05:33:23 +0000

Sonali Loan Scam
Hall-Mark MD arrested after daylong drive
Tanvir Mahmud, managing director of Hall-Mark Group, and another top official of the controversial firm, were nabbed by the Rapid Action Battalion last night in the
capital’s Pallabi in connection with the Sonali Bank loan scam.
The other official is Tushar Ahmed, general manager (commercial), also husband of Tanvir’s sister-in-law.
“We arrested them around 9:30pm from a house at Section-6 of Mirpur,” Lt Col Ziaul Ahsan, Rab’s intelligence wing director, told The Daily Star.
Tanvir was hiding in a flat owned by one Shamsuddin Doha, a relative of Tanvir, he said.
Rab’s media and legal wing Director Capt M Sohail said the force had also recovered a foreign pistol, four bullets and a magazine from Tanvir’s possession.
It could not be immediately confirmed whether the gun was licensed.
Rab said it would hand over the duo to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) authorities.
Tanvir dodged the law enforcers in the early hours yesterday when more than 100 personnel from Rab, police and the ACC conducted a three-hour drive in the company’s
factories in Savar, on the outskirts of the capital. The drive started at 2:00am.
Tanvir was arrested on a request from the ACC, which filed 11 cases on October 4 with Ramna Police Station against 27 officials of Hall-Mark and state-owned Sonali
Bank for misappropriating Tk 1,568 crore.
The cases were filed under the Money Laundering Prevention Act and the Corruption Prevention Act.
Of the accused, seven are Hall-Mark officials, including Tanvir, while the rest are Sonali Bank officials, including its former managing director Humayun Kabir.
Talking to The Daily Star about their failure in the first drive to arrest Tanvir, Lt Col Ziaul said the elite force had faced obstacles on the road near the factories
in Savar as two vehicles were left abandoned there.
“It delayed our operation and by then, Tanvir had fled through an alternative way.
“We found three women in Tanvir’s room and more than 30 others in another. We also saw a huge quantity of liquor there. But we neither arrested the women nor seized
anything as our first priority was to nab Tanvir,” he added.
He also expressed surprise over the security arrangements in and around the factories. There were several hundred private security personnel under the company “Hall-
Mark Patrol” in addition to 350 Ansar personnel.
According to an audit report, the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of Sonali Bank had disbursed Tk 3,606 crore in loan to Hall-Mark Group and five other companies defying
banking rules.
The Bangladesh Bank also revealed massive irregularities in the sanctioning and disbursing of loans, especially to the little-known Hall-Mark Group.
COURT ASKS ACC REPORTS
Meanwhile, a Dhaka court yesterday asked the investigation officers of the ACC to submit the probe reports of all the 11 cases by November 16.
Also yesterday, the High Court adjourned for two weeks the hearing on a writ petition that sought its directive on the government for recovering the loan.
Supreme Court lawyer Eunus Ali Akond filed the petition on September 17 with the HC, seeking its order on the authorities concerned to confiscate the assets of the
companies for their failure to refund the money.

Courtesy of The Daily Star

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Hall-Mark seeks fresh Sonali loan

Admin — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 16:39:13 +0000

Claims it can export garment worth Tk 500cr in 2 months if granted Tk 25cr loan
Controversial business group Hall-Mark has sought a fresh loan of Tk 25 crore from the Sonali Bank, claiming the credit would help it export garment worth Tk 500 crore in two months, said sources in the bank.
Like before, the company provided false and fabricated information relating to its export potentials.
Meanwhile, leading businessmen have questioned how could the Hall-Mark Group, which had exported only $55 million (Tk 448 crore) worth of garments in five and a half years, will be able to export over $60 million (Tk 500 crore) in two months.
“It took 15 years or more for many businesses to export $50 million worth of garments a year. It is absurd for little-known Hall-Mark to achieve that feat,” said Anawr-ul-Alam Chowdhury Parvez, a leading exporter.
According to industry leaders, there are around 150 business houses that export $50 million worth of garments per year from Bangladesh. But it is not necessary for them to own 30-35 factories, though Hall-Mark claims of owning 34 factories.
They said a factory of 40 lines or two factories of 20 lines each can produce and export $50 million worth of garments a year.
A businessman need not own 35 factories to achieve such a target in over five years, mentioned Anwar, also a former president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).
Statistics of Hall-Mark says its total exports were $55 million between early 2007 and May this year.
An investigation by the Bangladesh Bank in May this year detected irregularities in the way the company took out loans of Tk 2,686 crore from the Ruposhi Bangla branch of the Sonali Bank. Since then all commercial banks stopped funding the group.
Banks do not even want to open any Letter of Credit (L/C) in favour of the company, which is imperative to export products.
Tushar Ahmed, general manager (commercial) of Hall-Mark Group, said they started export in 2007 with Hall-Mark Fashion and added six factories in 2008.
During a visit to the Hall-Mark factories at Hemayetpur in Savar in August, Tushar told this correspondent that they have export orders in hand worth only $7 million (Tk 56 crore), a much lower figure than the group cited to Sonali Bank about it export potentials.
Last week he admitted applying for the fresh loans.
Besides his chairman and managing director, Tushar is one of the principal accused in several cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission for the loan scam.
Garments exporters, who are in business for more than two decades, are surprised to see how the little-known group with a small export figure was granted the loan in just two years.
Exporters said Tanvir Mahmud, owner of Hall-Mark Group, in the loan documents showed his factories’ capacity many times higher than the reality to deceive the bank and swindle depositors’ money.
According to BGMEA members’ directory, Hall-Mark Denim Composite’s annual capacity has been shown at 3.5 lakh dozen or 42 lakh pieces a year. If a piece is exported at a minimum price of $3, this factory alone can fetch $12.6 million a year.
Yearly production capacities of Hall-Mark Design, Hall-Mark Denim Fashion and Hall-Mark Fashion have been shown 48 lakh, 42 lakh and 54 lakh pieces respectively.
“If these four factories are run on 60 percent capacity, they together can earn $50 million a year from exports,” said Iqbal Hossain, another exporter.
He also suspected many of the Hall-Mark factories are paper-based, but the bank failed to detect that.
“How could Sonali Bank lend such a big amount of depositors’ money to Hall-Mark without checking its production capacity and exports?” questioned Parvez.
Exporters also said to run so many factories, Hall-Mark requires efficient people in its management. But the businessmen do not know any such skilful person in the Hall-Mark’s upper ranks.

-With The Daily Star input

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27 sued, finally

Admin — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:10:57 +0000

Hall-Mark Loan Scam
27 sued, finally
After two and a half months’ investigation, the Anti-Corruption Commission yesterday filed 11 cases against 27 top officials of Sonali Bank and
Hall-Mark Group for misappropriating over Tk 1,568 crore in depositor’s money.
The sum, which was funded loan meaning given in cash, is part of the more than Tk 2,600-crore credit that the controversial group in collaboration with some bank officials swindled out of the bank using forged documents, according to the investigation.
Seven of the accused are Hall-Mark officials, including its owner Tanvir Mahmud, while the rest are Sonali Bank officials, including its former managing director Humayun Kabir.
The ACC would now try to arrest the accused, said Mir Mohammad Zainul Abedin Shibli, deputy director of the commission, after filing of the cases with Ramna Police Station in the capital.
The cases were filed under anti-money laundering and corruption prevention acts, said Shibli, who led a six-member inquiry team.
“If convicted under the anti-money laundering act, the accused may get up to 10 years in prison and their moveable and immovable properties might also be confiscated,” he told a press briefing at the ACC headquarters.
According to the ACC findings, Sonali Bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch disbursed over Tk 1,568.49 crore in loan to Hall-Mark between October 2011 and May this year.
“It is not a loan scam; it is the biggest ever misappropriation in the baking industry,” he said, “Sonali Bank officials concerned helped Hall-Mark to embezzle the money by staying till late night in the branch.”
The swindle was done through forged inland bill purchase (IBP), fraudulently showing some of the Hall-Mark officials as owners of various businesses, he said.
The ACC would now look into the wealth of Tanvir Mahmud, his wife and Hall-Mark Chairperson Jasmine Islam and the Sonali Bank directors who were in office when the scam happened, he added.
Asked why no member of the board of directors had been sued, he said the investigation did not find their link in the scam as the approval of the IBPs was not discussed in the board meetings.
On the arrest of the accused, he said: “We are making our highest effort to arrest them. We will also take steps so that they cannot flee the country.”
Meanwhile, Tanvir Mahmud yesterday failed to submit the memorandum of articles and tax information of his companies to a parliamentary sub-committee probing the loan scam.
Tanvir sent a letter to committee chief Tazul Islam, seeking another month for compliance to go into effect, officials in the parliament secretariat said.
FULL LIST OF ACCUSED
The Hall-Mark Group accused are its MD Tanvir Mahmud, Chairperson Jasmine Islam, General Manager Tusher Ahmed and officials Jahangir Alam, Mir Zakaria, Ziaur Rahman and Shahidul Islam.
Sonali Bank’s Ruposhi Bangla branch officials: former manager AKM Azizur Rahman, assistant general manager Saiful Hasan and executive officer Md Abdul Matin. The trio has recently been suspended for their alleged involvement in the fraud.
The bank’s Dhanmondi branch officials: Meherun Nesa Merry, senior executive officer, and Wahiduzzaman, former senior officer.
Head office officials: former MD Humayun Kabir, deputy managing director Mainul Haque (now officer on special duty), DMD Atikur Rahman (OSD), General Manager ANM Mashrurul Huda Siraji, GM Nani Gopal Nath (OSD), GM Meer Mahidur Rahman (OSD), former GM Sabita Siraj, Deputy General Manager Sheikh Altaf Hossain (suspended), DGM Bhagobati Majumder (suspended), DGM Shafijuddin Ahmed (suspended), DGM Kaniz Fatema Chowdhury, Assistant General Manager Kamrul Hossain Khan (suspended), AGM Ashraf Ali Patwari (suspended), AGM Abul Hassan and AGM Khurshid Alam.
FLASHBACK
In May, a Bangladesh Bank investigation revealed serious irregularities at Sonali Bank’s Ruposhi Bangla branch in sanctioning and disbursing loans worth Tk 3,547 crore. Of the amount, Hall-Mark Group took Tk 2,686 crore against fake paper.
The BB then instructed the bank to take necessary action against 31 of its officials.
Later, Sonali Bank carried out a functional audit in the branch. The audit found that AKM Azizur Rahman and Saiful Hasan had extended unauthorised loans to Hall-Mark and five other companies. Hall-Mark alone was given Tk 2,667.45 crore.
The audit report said the branch manager demonstrated utter negligence to banking rules in sanctioning those loans.
On August 30, Sonali Bank suspended 17 of its officials over the fraud.
Later on September 3, two deputy managing directors — Atiqur Rahman and Mainul Haque — were made OSDs for their failure in preventing the scam

Courtesy of The Daily Star

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Sonali directors put blame on management

Admin — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:19:40 +0000

Hall-Mark Loan Scam
Sonali directors put blame on management
Immediate-past directors of Sonali Bank yesterday tried to wash their hands of the Hall-Mark loan scam and blamed the Tk 2,686 crore swindle squarely on the bank’s management.
A four-member parliamentary probe committee held a meeting with the bank’s nine former directors for nearly three hours at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.
“They (directors) claimed Hall-Mark had swindled the money in collaboration with the bank’s management (officials),” Tajul Islam, the committee chief, told reporters following the meeting.
Asked why the board had failed to detect such a big scam, he said the former directors’ answers to that, according to the committee, were satisfactory.
The board expired on August 9 after a three-year term. Between 2010 and May 2012, Hall-Mark pocketed Tk 2,686 crore from the bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch through letters of credit (LC). The LCs had been opened apparently to purchase yarn and other materials for making finished products for exports.
A central bank report in May this year revealed that most of those LCs had been opened against forged documents. The Hall-Mark Group took away the money by selling those documents to other banks after Sonali Bank had approved those.
The then board of directors said they had been totally unaware of the Hall-Mark loans but still claimed to be successful in operating the country’s largest bank.
“I don’t think we have failed to play our role in the bank’s operation,” said Kashem Humayun, one of the nine directors.
The loans were taken out in two years but the big chunk of the cash was taken in the six months from October 2011, said another board member Anwar Shahid.
The management had never placed memos (documents) of Hall-Mark loans before the board, he said, “We came to know of the issue from the Bangladesh Bank report.”
KM Zaman Romel, the then head of Sonali Bank’s audit committee (comprising board members) that had a role to play, declined to talk to the media.
“I’m no longer with the bank,” was all he said.
Generally, a loan worth Tk 10 crore and more has to be placed and granted by the board and loans of Tk 5 crore or below Tk 10 crore can be approved by the Executive Committee of the board. Loans below these two ranges mentioned can pass through the management.
For a first-time borrower, even a Tk 1 crore loan has to be brought to the board’s notice. But it varies from one bank to another.
Pradip Kumar Dutta, managing director of the state-run bank, who was also present at the meeting, declined to make any comment when the bank’s board blamed the management for the irregularities.
I’ll not say anything because it is under investigation.”
Pradip, however, admitted to the management’s failure in supervising the loans.
A chief executive officer of a private bank, asking not to be named, disagreed with the then Sonali Bank board of directors.
“The loans that Sonali gave Hall-Mark were not within the power of the management. It is very unusual that the bank’s board did not know it,” said the CEO.
Besides, the audit committee had authority over the day to day transactions, he said, and so it could ask for any information from the management.
Mayeedul Islam, a member of the parliamentary probe committee, told The Daily Star, “Criminals, whoever they are, must get punished.”
Meanwhile, Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman Ghulam Rahman said the anti-graft body would sue 27 senior officials of the Hall-Mark Group and Sonali Bank today.
The ACC has also decided to investigate the wealth of the bank’s eight former directors and its chairman.

Courtesy of The Daily Star

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Shortcut to fortune

Admin — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:48:17 +0000

Hall-Mark’s way of building empire with short-term loans
Controversial business group Hall-Mark in wilful violation of banking rules has invested in long-term projects the money it took in short-term loan from state-run Sonali Bank.
The group that began making garments in 2007 now owns 80 factories, at least 40 of which are on paper though. Most of the ones that exist were built with the short-term loans.
Hall-Mark itself is aware that it has done wrong by diverting short-term loans (Inland Bill Purchase-IBP) into project loans, which are long-term in nature, but lender Sonali Bank seemed not to notice it.
“We’ve taken short-term loans for up to 120 days, but invested the money in setting up factories,” said Tushar Ahmed, group general manager (commercial) who is also a close relative of company owner Tanvir Mahmud.
Talking to this correspondent on September 17 at the company’s Hemayetpur project site in Savar, Tusher said, “It takes long to get a project loan. We know the way we’ve utilised the working capital for long-term investments is not proper.”
The project in Hemayetpur, some 30km northwest of the capital, is built on a 100-acre land, a large portion of which was bought with Sonali Bank loan.
Tushar, the key man to deal with banks on Hall-Mark’s behalf, defended his boss’s decision to divert the loan money.
He claimed his company did not siphon off the money; it rather invested in setting up more factories and creating jobs.
According to Hall-Mark, its net liabilities to Sonali Bank stand at Tk 2,268 crore. Of the sum, Tk 1,567 crore is funded loan, meaning the amount has been taken in cash. The remaining amount is non-funded loan, mostly in the form of guarantee against letter of credits (LCs).
The company paid back Tk 400.38 crore to the bank after the lender stopped disbursing new loans to the company in May this year.
A Bangladesh Bank investigation in May found the group’s total liabilities to be Tk 2,686.14 crore.
All of the Hall-Mark loans were against IBP, which is a short-term credit facility utilised as working capital. But the hitherto little-known company used these loans for buying land and building factories.
“We are ready to pay the loans, but our factories must keep on running for that,” said Tushar.
He claimed that they had export orders worth $7 million (about Tk 57 crore) from renowned buyers like H&M, JCPenney and Walmart.
“We cannot export anything as no bank wants to accept our letter of credits now,” he said.
Hall-Mark bought 36 decimals of land from Janata Housing at Hemayetpur in 2006 and set up its first factory, Hall-Mark Fashion, there in 2007, the year it started banking with Sonali Bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch.
In 2008, the group set up Boby Fashion, Wall-Mart Fashion, Hall-Mark Style, Boby Denim and Hall-Mark Design Wear with Sonali Bank loans.
There was no factory built in the next two years. But in 2011, it suddenly got hold of a source of money and set up 27 factories that year.
“We’ve invested all loans from Sonali Bank to set up these factories,” said Tushar.
A chief executive officer of a leading private bank said IBPs are a short-term working capital that cannot be used for long-term investments.
“It’s a violation of banking norms and grammar,” he added, preferring not to be named.
The CEO said the way Hall-Mark used the loan money was not viable either because it had to repay the loan within 120 days; but it would not get the return of its investments in two to three years for the nature of the business.
Group Managing Director Tanvir Mahmud did not respond to the phone calls by The Daily Star. He also did not reply to the text messages requesting his comment on such violation.

Courtesy of The Daily Star

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Sonali board members blame management

Admin — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 08:21:31 +0000

Hallmark Scam
Sonali board members blame management
Four members of the board of directors of Sonali Bank on Wednesday alleged the bank management was involved in the Hallmark money swindling, claiming their non-involvement in the loan scam.
Members of the board of directors Suvas Chandra Singho Roy, Jannat Ara Henry, KM Zaman Romel and Sattayendra Chandra Bhakta made the allegation after being interrogated by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Two other members of the board of directors, Anwar Shahid and ASM Nayeem were also interrogated by the ACC in connection with the alleged swindling of about Tk 3,547 crore by Hallmark Group from the Ruposhi Bangla hotel branch of Sonali Bank.
Meanwhile, an ACC official told New Age that Sonali Bank on Wednesday sent a letter to ACC asking it to file cases against 22 people, including three former bank officials, in the swindling scam.
Three former bank officials are deputy general manager AKM Azizur Rahman, assistant general manager Safiqul Hasan and international trade and business department official Abdul Matin.
The remaining 19 are senior executives of the Hallmark Group and five other companies. They include Hallmark Group managing director Tanvir Mahmud and his wife Jesmin Islam, also chairman of the group, and general manager Tushar Ahmed.
The ACC chairman Ghulam Rahaman told New Age that he had received a letter from Sonali Bank and forwarded it to the inquiry team but he did not disclose the content of the letter.
Earlier on Tuesday, Sonali Bank managing director Pradip Kumar Dutta had said his bank would not file any criminal cases against some of its officials and Hallmark Group’s MD and chairman.
After the interrogation on Wednesday, Subhash Singha Roy told reporters that ‘the government is living with enemy.’
He demanded legal punishment for those involved in the embezzlement of money.
Jannat Ara Henry, who was also interrogated by ACC, said the money was swindled through Inland Bill Purchase and the board of directors did not discuss the IBP issue as this agenda was not tabled at the board meetings.
She said that the bank management is responsible for the scam, not the board of directors.
The ACC commissioner Bodiuzzman told reporters that the commission would take action against board members if they find their involvement in the scam.
A six-member team led by ACC deputy director Mir Md Zainul Abedin Shibly started the interrogation at its office from 9am which continued till 5pm.
The Sonali Bank Chairman Quazi Baharul Islam, directors Kashem Humayun, Pradip Kumar Dutta, Shaimum Sarwar and Kamal Shahid Ulla Mia will face ACC interrogation today.
Earlier, the ACC inquiry team interrogated 62 people including prime minister’s health advisor Syed Modasser Ali in connection with the scam.
On September 10, the Bank and Financial Institutions Division of the Finance Ministry asked the Sonali Bank authorities to file criminal cases against the officials of the bank and Hallmark Group involved in the scam.
The central bank accordingly instructed the Sonali Bank authorities to take action against 32 of its officials, including a former managing director and two deputy managing directors.

-With New Age input

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Sonali Bank won’t file criminal case

Admin — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:25:25 +0000

Tk 2,686cr Hall-Mark Scam
Sonali Bank won’t file criminal case
Wants ACC to deal with criminal charges
Sonali Bank has decided not to file any criminal case against the controversial Hall-Mark Group, which swindled Tk 2,686 crore out of the bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch using forged documents.
“Legal advisers have suggested that we don’t file any case, as the Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating the issue,” bank’s Managing Director Pradip Kumar Dutta told reporters yesterday.
On September 10, the finance ministry in a letter asked Sonali Bank to sue the officials of the bank and Hall-Mark Group involved in the scam.
At the time, officials at the bank’s head office told The Daily Star that they had identified the “culprits” and would take action against them on arrival of Pradip Kumar from the UK, where he was attending a meeting.
But the bank at a meeting with a parliamentary probe committee yesterday decided not to file any case.
“We’ve complained to the Anti-Corruption Commission and it will take action against the Hall-Mark Group officials, including its chairman and managing director,” Pradip said.
Asked about recovering the money, he said: “We’re trying our best.
“Tanvir Mahmud [Hall-Mark managing director] has promised to pay back the loans.”
Pradip, however, did not say when the money would be recovered.
Md Tazul Islam, who is heading the four-member government probe committee, said his team visited the bank’s headquarters yesterday as part of the investigation.
“We’re not here to probe criminal charges. We’ll see internal control, risk management and accountability issue of the bank,” he said.
A Bangladesh Bank investigation found that the Ruposhi Bangla branch of Sonali Bank lent Hall-Mark Group and five other companies Tk 3,547 crore from 2010 till May this year.
Of the sum, all swindled using fake papers, Hall-Mark alone took Tk 2,686 crore.
Together with a section of the bank’s top management and branch officials, prime minister’s Health Adviser Modasser Ali’s name came up in the scam.
He is alleged to have helped Hall-Mark in embezzling the money, a charge he rejects.
“The investigation is going on and we cannot say who will be quizzed and who will not be quizzed,” Tazul Islam told The Daily Star.
The lawmaker, however, said AKM Azizur Rahman, an official of the Sonali Bank’s Ruposhi Bangla branch who has been suspended, confessed to have illegally disbursing loans to Hall-Mark.
Tazul declined to elaborate on the findings. His committee opened the probe on September 5.
Asked when the probe will conclude, he said, “It is hard to say when the investigation will end.”
Meanwhile, the ACC has served notices on the immediate past board of directors for questioning in connection with the scam, an ACC official said.

Courtesy of The Daily Star

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Sonali in a sticky stew

Admin — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 15:25:34 +0000

Tk 2,686cr Loan Scam
Sonali in a sticky stew
Recovery effort stalls as mortgaged land of Hall-Mark overvalued; company claims it is now totally off business
The cash-strapped Sonali Bank is not getting back its money from Hall-Mark Group so soon. To retrieve the money, the quickest way for the state bank is to sell the Hall-Mark assets mortgaged against the loans.
The controversial business group in a letter on Tuesday informed the state-run bank of its inability to return the money in a short time, Tushar Ahmed, general manager (commercial) of Hall-Mark, told The Daily Star yesterday.
“We cannot pay back the loans now as our businesses are totally off,” he said on the expiry of Sonali Bank’s ultimatum to refund in 15 days half of the Tk 2,686 crore loans Hall-Mark had taken on fake documents.
“We want to repay the loans in long-term instalments,” he said.
Hall-Mark paid back more than Tk 400 crore to the bank after the lender stopped disbursing new loans to the company in May this year, said Tushar, who is also a close relative of the company’s owner, Tanvir Mahmud.
According to Hall-Mark, its net liabilities to Sonali Bank now stand at Tk 2,268 crore. Of which, Tk 1,567 crore is funded loan meaning that the amount has been given in cash and the remaining amount is non-funded, mostly in the form of guarantee against letters of credit (LCs).
Hall-Mark mortgaged 47 acres of land of its factory located at Tetuljhora of Hemayetpur in Savar, 30-km off the capital.
According to Sonali Bank, the price of the mortgaged land is at most Tk 600 crore, but the borrower claims it is worth Tk 2,000 crore.
The bank is in a dilemma about what action it would take to recover the loans.
It had not yet filed any case against Hall-Mark, a senior official concerned said, though the company’s response to the ultimatum, which expired on Tuesday, was in the negative.
Sonali Bank is the country’s largest bank in terms of assets, deposits, advances and networks. It used to be a lender in the money market, but became a borrower for the past two years.
In April, Bangladesh Bank observed that the state-run bank was running on inadequate cash. Later, it found that Tk 3,547 crore had been swindled out of the bank by Hall-Mark and five other companies on forged documents.

Courtesy of The Daily Star

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ACC spreads dragnet

Admin — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 11:49:29 +0000

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

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