ACC interrogates four BB officials over PK Halder scam

Published : Tuesday, 25 January, 2022 at 12:00 AM Count : 847

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) interrogated four Bangladesh Bank senior officials over former NRB Global Bank managing director Prashant Kumar Halder for four hours.
An investigating team, led by ACC Deputy Director and Investigation Officer Gulshan Anwar, conducted the interrogation at ACC head office on Monday morning.
Earlier, ACC filed a case on January 8, 2020 against Prashant Kumar Halder alias PK Halder for allegedly acquiring illegal assets worth around Tk2.75 billion.
PK Halder, who has been absconding, acquired illegal assets worth around Tk4.26 billion using various illegal ways in his name and under various fake companies' names or individuals' names, according to case charge sheet.
The ACC officials interrogated the four BB officials in two equal groups.

To conceal the location of his illegal assets, PK Halder transacted money through 178 bank accounts. He deposited Tk60.8 billion in these accounts and withdrew Tk60.76 billion from them in his name and anonymously.
The four BB officials interrogated were joint directors Mohammad Ferdous Kabir and ABM Mubarak Hossain, deputy director Md. Hamidul Alam and Assistant Director Md Kader.
According to ACC sources, PK Haldar embezzled the amount from International Leasing, People's Leasing and FAS Finance in the name of various non-existent firms and organizations. The ACC filed a total of 22 cases in this regard.

Now the ACC wants to know the weaknesses in the monitoring of Bangladesh Bank in the case of embezzlement of money from those institutions and what were the weaknesses of the concerned officials including concealment of information in the audit report.
Four officers were questioned today as part of the investigation. If any other officer is found to be complicit in the investigation, they will also be similarly questioned, the source said.
A source in the ACC said, during interrogation, the four officials of Bangladesh Bank denied their involvement in the embezzlement of PK Haldar's money laundering bids.