Special Correspondent :
Khaza Solaiman Anwar Chowdhury, owner of the controversial Bismillah Group, has reportedly opened a business firm in the United States of America (USA) swindling funds from Bangladeshi banks.
He floated a company naming “Bismillah Towel Group (BTG) and Textiles INC” in Vernon, the smelliest city in the US, which is located downtown Los Angeles.
The company is now involved in importing towels and terry products from a local textile company located in the city’s Uttar Khan area.
According to a Bangladesh Bank report, Bismillah Group swindled about Tk 1,250 crore from five banks (Janata, Prime, Shahjalal, Jamuna and Premier, providing forged export documents.
The controversial group swindled the money with the help of bank officials between June 2006 and October 2012.
On February 26, 2013, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) formed a five-member inquiry team to probe the alleged loan scandal.
But Khaza Solaiman and his family members have left the country to avoid ACC’s prosecution.
“Offenders of Bismillah Group loan scams are absconding from Bangladesh to defy the criminal prosecution. It is undermining the ACC’s investigation as well as rule of law,” an ACC official told The New Nation yesterday on condition of anonymity.
He said it is a matter of concern that high value economic offenders, willful loan defaulters and fraudsters are absconding from Bangladesh. Even, bank officials, who have been accused of orchestrating the big loan scams, ran away to other country after frauds have exposed.
“We asked the concerned agencies to impose travel embargo on the offenders. But somehow they managed to flee the country making the ACC helpless to bring the offenders to book as well as making the recovery of defrauded and defaulted funds uncertain, ” he added.
The ACC officials, however, said that the anti-graft body already framed charge against 14 people, including Bismillah Group’s Managing Director Khaza Solaiman Anwar Chowdhury and wife and group’s Chairman Nawrin Hasib, for embezzling Tk 110 crore from Shahjalal Islami Bank.
