News Desk :
Bangladeshi Member of the Parliament, Mohammad Shahid Islam, taken into custody in Kuwait on charges of human trafficking and money laundering, had five million Kuwaiti dinars ($16.25 million nearly Tk 140 crore in BD currency) in assets in Kuwait, Gulf News quoted Kuwaiti media as saying.
The accused runs the Marafie Kuwaitia Group as managing director and CEO.
Investigators told Al Qabas that Kuwaiti authorities had imposed a freeze on the bank accounts of the Bangladeshi lawmaker and his company.
“The balance of the company is about five million dinars, of which three million dinars is the capital of the company,” they revealed.
They said freezing of assets is part of a legal measure to prevent the Bangladeshi lawmaker from moving his assets beyond the jurisdiction of a court in Kuwait.
“It is variously construed as part of a court’s inherent jurisdiction to restrain breaches of its process,” they added.
It was further revealed that the residency investigation officers, acting on a warrant, had seized all the funds in the company’s treasury, all documents and correspondence, in addition to footage from the surveillance cameras to identify any potential accomplice of the defendant.
The investigators said until Thursday, the number of Kuwaiti officials under investigation had increased to nine. The number is expected to go up, based on further investigations and confessions.
They said further arrest warrants will be issued against whoever is found to have received bribes or gifts to execute transactions on behalf of the accused Bangladeshi.
Earlier, witnesses said the Lakshmipur MP would act like a mafia boss, demanding ‘taxes’ from the poor and low-income workers, Al Rais reported. “The accused men imposed a ‘royalty’ on workers, at a value of 8 dinars per day,” a witness said.
