The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has started a probe into the alleged accumulation of illegal wealth and unusual bank transaction of former Basic Bank Chairman Abdul Hai Bachchu.
The anti-graft body assigned its Deputy Director Shamsul Alam to investigate allegations of illegally acquired
wealth and abnormal money transaction in Standard Chartered Bank.
The officer will also investigate bank transaction of one of Bachchu’s brothers and relatives under the Money Laundering Act.
When Abdul Hai Bachchu was the Chairman of the Basic Bank, he opened a fake company named Eden Fisheries Limited along with his wife Sheikh Shirin Akhter, son Sheikh Sabit Hai Anik and daughter Sheikh Rafa Hai.
An account was opened at Motijheel’s Standard Chartered Bank in the name of the ‘paper-based’ business firm.
More than Tk 13 crore was deposited only in 13 months after opening the bank accounts. Bachchu and his brother Shahriar Panna had deposited the money directly from different organisations, according to Bangladesh Bank (BB).
A BB special inspection team also found Tk 30 crore in the accounts of Bachchu and his brother Panna. The money was deposited in between 2012 and 2013.
“The amount was deposited to their accounts diverting funds from Basic Bank as shady loans to fake business firms,” said a BB official.
The ACC will also investigate this matter, ACC official said.
ACC earlier interrogated Bachchu in nine cases, out of a total 56 cases of Basic Bank loan scandals. He will be interrogated in the remaining 47 cases in phases, ACC Deputy Director Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya told The New Nation yesterday.
“The ACC will again serve notice on him to appear for the ACC for interrogation,” said the ACC official.
Bachchu, on 17 December made an appeal to the ACC seeking one-month time to remain absent from the interrogation of the bank’s loan scam on health ground. But the ACC rejected his plea.
“We learned that Bachchu was admitted to Apollo Hospitals for one day (December 17th), but he did not receive treatment. It proves that he was not seriously ill as he claimed in the petition. So, the ACC rejected his petition and decided to summon him again,” another ACC official told The New Nation.
He said, the ACC is likely to frame graft charge against former Basic Bank boss after its’ investigation proved his illegal wealth accumulation as well as money transaction in banks.
