Beximco laundered $135 million: CID

Beximco Group laundered at least $135 million by exporting goods through 18 companies without repatriation of the export value, said the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) yesterday.
The CID’s financial crime unit termed the anomalies as “trade-based money laundering” and has already started an investigation on this, said Kusum Dewan, deputy inspector general (organised crime).
About $23.04 million was laundered through Apollo Apparels, $24 million through Bextex Garments, $25.20 million through Int’l Knitwear and Apparels and $24.39 million through Esses Fashions, according to CID’s database.
All are concerns of Beximco Group, whose vice-chairman Salman F Rahman was the private industry and investment adviser to former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
The group first opened a letter of credit for exporting goods and then took a loan locally against 80 percent of the value, said Md Moniruzzaman, inspector of the CID financial crime unit.
As the group did not bring back the export proceeds, the loan remains unpaid.
“Beximco Group laundered money through this way,” he added.
Another official at the CID financial crime unit said they have found primary information that Rahman laundered the money and invested in real estate in different countries including Dubai, Singapore and the UK.
Rahman’s son, Ahmed Shayan Fazlur Rahman, has opened a large pharmaceutical company in Saudi Arabia, said a CID official involved with the investigation. And most of the funds of that company in Saudi Arabia went from Bangladesh, he said.
Once the primary investigation is complete, a case would be filed under the Money Launder Act against Beximco Group, Dewan said.
During the primary investigation, the CID’s financial crime unit found that Beximco Group has been accused of fraudulently taking loans from seven banks in the last 15 years.
Of the loans, Tk 5,218 crore was taken from IFIC Bank, whose chairman is Rahman himself.
The sprawling conglomerate took at least Tk 21,681 crore from the principal branch of the state-run Janata Bank, according to a CID official involved with the investigation.
Beximco also took Tk 295 crore from National Bank; Tk 5,671 crore from Sonali, Agrani and Rupali; and Tk 605 crore from AB Bank, according to CID’s primary data.
The CID’s financial crime unit has sent teams to the seven banks to collect their database, said its special superintendent Mohammad Basir Uddin.
CID’s primary investigation found that Rahman is accused of laundering the loans abroad in the name of various companies of Beximco Group.
There are also allegations that in the last three years around Tk 6,600 crore has been taken from the market visibly and Tk 20,000 crore embezzled through fraud and forgery, reads the CID primary investigation report.
Rahman has been in police custody since August 13 in a case filed over the killing of a shop employee.