Laundering Tk 494.6cr: 6 more cases filed against PK Halder

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) yesterday filed another six cases charging PK Halder as prime accused for laundering about Tk 494.6 crore from International Leasing and Financial Services Limited (ILFSL).

Earlier, ACC filed 15 cases against Halder and his associates for laundering about Tk 1,128 crore from ILFSL, a non-banking financial institution (NBFI).

ACC Deputy Director Gulshan Anowar Prodhan filed the cases yesterday accusing 37 people including Halder for laundering Tk 494.6 crore of the NBFI.

The other accused are: Imam Hossain, proprietor, Imexco; Uttam Kumar Mistri, managing director, Lipro International; Ratan Kumar Biswas, proprietor, RB Enterprize; Ramprashad Roy, proprietor, Konika Enterprize; Subrata Das, chairman, Ookayama Limited and Proshanto Deuri, chairman, Earthscope Limited.

According to the case statement, Halder took loans from financial institutions against at least two dozen non-existent companies created by him.

In some cases, he used part of the funds to repay installments of loans taken against several fictitious firms.

Imexco took loan of about Tk 58 crore, Lipro International Tk 174 crore, Ookayama Tk 87.6 crore, RB enterprise Tk 55 crore, Konika Tk 60 crore and Earthscope Tk 60 crore from ILFSL.

The investigation officer did not find the existence of these organisations.

On March 16, ACC arrested ILFSL's acting managing director Syed Abed Hasan, vice-president Nahida Runai and senior manager Rafsan Riyad Chowdhury from the capital's Motijheel in this connection.

The anti-graft watchdog has also given approval to the IOs to issue notice against 33 persons for submitting their wealth statements in connection with the cases.

Before joining at now defunct NRB Global Bank as managing director in 2015, Halder was managing director of Reliance Finance.

He took out huge amount of loans through fictitious companies from Reliance. To adjust the loan, he used similar tactics and took out money from ILFSL, FAS Finance and Peoples' Leasing and Financial Services Limited (PLFSL), ACC sources said.

"To make the laundering process smoother, he put his men at the helms of these NBFIs," the ACC deputy director said.