Staff Reporter :
An organization called ‘Chetona Multipurpose Co-operative Society Limited’ has swindled Tk 300 crore from at least one thousand lower and middle class family members in the Savar-Ashulia area of Dhaka, by showing greed for higher profits.
RAB has arrested 10 people including the vice-president and general secretary of the organization on this charge.
The arrested have been identified as Iqbal Hossain Sarkar (35), Mazharul Islam (35), Momin Hossain (35), Jahangir Alam (35), Ibrahim Khalil (35), SM Maqbool Hossain (40), Mizanur Rahman (38), Al Amin Hossain (28), Fazlul Haque (35) and Nur Hossain (28).
On Tuesday (March 22), a team of RAB-4 conducted a raid from 5 pm to 1 am and arrested them from Ashulia area. Cash, mobile phones and bank cheques were also recovered from them.
This information was given by RAB-4 Commander Additional DIG Mozzammel Haque in a press conference held at RAB Media Center, Karwan Bazar in the capital on Wednesday (March 23).
In order to confuse the devout Muslims, the accused used to talk about running the organization based on the Islamic Sharia. But, according to their rules, there was no Islamic Sharia Board.
During the preliminary interrogation, the accused informed RAB that Chetona Multipurpose Co-operative Society Limited was established in February 2008 with a 30-member governing body. They used to attract various local small business people and low income people towards high profit savings and micro loans.
Gradually the organization began to expand. At the same time the Chetona multipurpose began to work on a larger scale. Their main target was the middle and
lower class families of Ashulia and Savar areas.
The company used to attract them with savings policy, FDR, DPS, pension policy, education policy, hajj policy and real estate business partner policy assuring them of very high profit.
Mozzammel Haque said they encouraged more than a thousand families to deposit money in the organization, promising a 18 per cent to 30 per cent profit on the general savings policy. In order to gain trust, the company would pay dividends to the recipient in the first few months of the contract. Seeing that, ordinary investors would be more interested in investing. Many people even deposit their pension money, money from the sale of village houses, earned money from abroad in the hope of making a high profit.
Hundreds of crores of taka were swindled in this way and the officials of the organization went missing after locking the office on March 16.
It is learned that the partners of the company have bought land anonymously in different places, constructed multi-storied buildings and set up small and big factories.
At the same time, they have smuggled out money abroad in different ways anonymously at different times.
