Staff Reporter :
The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) has said in a report submitted in the High Court that the 17 ecommerce companies have transacted around Tk 10,500 crore through different bank accounts since 2019 to 2021.
Among these companies, Evaly Limited transacted total Tk 6296.56 crore, Eorange Shop Bangladesh transacted Tk 2148.20 crore and Qcoom Ltd transacted Tk 2092.33 crore during this period, BFIU said in the compliance report.
The 17 ecommerce platforms included Evaly, Eorange, Qcoom, Dhamaka, Boom Boom, Ring ID, Asthar Pratik, Sreshtha, Nirapad, Sirajganj Shop, Needs Com, Dot Lines Bangladesh Limited and Foster Corporation Limited.
Apart from this, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit has found money laundering allegations against three ecommerce platforms namely Boom Boom Limited, Qcoom Limited and Sirajganj Shop.
The government agency also sent its findings along with the documents to the criminal investigation department (CID) of the police for conducing further investigation into the allegations and to take necessary legal actions against the three ecommerce firms, also read the 672-page compliance report.
BFIU’s lawyer Shamim Ahmed Khaled on Thursday placed the report to the HC bench of Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Khizir Hayat during hearing three separate writ petitions filed as public interest litigations in connection with this issue.
BFIU said in the report that there is reasonable cause for suspecting that the money, which was generated from fraudulence, was deposited in the 30 bank accounts of Qcoom Limited, and therefore, their transactions were stayed on October 13, 2021 under the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012 following the request from the CID.
The agency also said in the report that it stayed transactions of four accounts of Boom Boom Limited and seven accounts of Sirajganj Shop on September 14, 2021 on similar grounds.
Meanwhile, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) also submitted a separate compliance report to the HC through Deputy Attorney General Bepul Bagmar, saying that it (NBR) has fined Tk 139 crore to 13 online business organizations for not paying taxes and VATs to the government.
The NBR has collected Tk 33 crore and Tk 12 crore as revenues from 196 registered online platforms in 2020-2021 fiscal year and in 2021-22 fiscal year respectively, according to the NBR’s compliance report.
After receiving the reports, the HC bench ordered the BFIU to submit a complete compliance report on this issue in this court and fixed May 22 for hearing and delivering further order on this matter.
Mohammad Shishir Manir filed a petition on September 23 on behalf of 33 consumers of the ecommerce platform ‘e-orange.shop’. Two other Supreme Court lawyers Md Anwarul Islam and Barrister Pallob Kabir M Humaun filed two other writ petitions as public interest litigations seeking some other directions over the e-commerce scams.
