The Anti-Corruption Commission has started 18 cases against state-run BASIC Bank on charges of irregularities and corruption.
Eight of those were lodged with Gulshan police, five with Motijheel police and a further five with Paltan police on Monday evening, ACC spokesman Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya said.
The cases accused 26 former and current officials of the bank's several branches in Dhaka.
Seventy-six other people were also named in the cases.
The bank officials include former DMDs Fazlur Rahman and Kanak Kumar Purkayastha, former MD Sajedur Rahman, Shantinagar branch's former AGM Anisur Rahman  Chowdhury, former manager Md Ali and Gulshan branch's Manager Shipar Ahmed.
The ACC lodged the 18 cases over irregularities and loan fraud at bank after investigating for nearly four years.
In March, it approved filing of 54 cases.
The ACC's move came nearly a month after the parliamentary standing committee on the finance ministry expressed dissatisfaction at its investigation into the corruption allegations.
An official of the national anti graft agency, asking not to be named, said: "Eighteen cases have been filed now. Other cases will be lodged later."
Bangladesh Bank, in May last year, had removed nine top BASIC Bank officials, after its audit detected irregularities in loan disbursement from its Dilkusha, Gulshan and Shantinagar branches amounting to Tk 45 billion over a period of five years.
Most of the loans remained unpaid because many of the borrowers were untraceable.
Following Managing Director Kazi Fakhrul Islam's sacking, the bank's Chairman Sheikh Abdul Hye Bacchu stepped down once the scam surfaced.
General Manager Mohammad Ali was also sacked in April this year.
A probe revealed their involvement in the irregularities and loan fraud.
Moreover, the beleaguered bank is also said to have abetted money laundering.     ?bdnews24.com