The Bangladesh Security and Exchange Commission (BSEC) has ordered to seize all market shares belonging to Prashanta Kumar Halder, better known as PK Halder’s companies.
The Central Depository Bangladesh Limited was ordered to seize the shares on Thursday, after the court issued a freeze on all of Halder’s assets following a case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
On May 14, PK Halder, who is wanted for embezzling thousands of crores of taka in Bangladesh, was arrested by law enforcement agencies in India.
Halder mainly took control of four Bangladeshi companie– Bangladesh Industrial Finance Company (BIFC), International Leasing and Financial Services Ltd (ILFSL), FAS Finance and Investments Limited and Peoples Leasing and Financial Services– by buying shares anonymously.
Halder, the former managing director of NRB Global Bank and Reliance Finance Limited, was believed to have fled to Canada after the ACC began an investigation into his illegal activities related to the casino business in 2019.
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He was arrested in the course of raids by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) under the Ministry of Finance of India in ten areas of West Bengal.
PK Halder and his associates took loans amounting to Tk2,000 crore from the FAS Finance and ILFSL against non-existent companies.
However, the amount was directly transferred to various financial institutions created by Halder.
He used layering procedures to conceal the source of the money through a series of transactions and bookkeeping tricks.
According to the ACC report, Halder took a loan of Tk45 crore in the name of Konica Enterprise, but Tk11.32 crore of the amount was transferred using three cheques of Bangladesh Bank to repay the liability of non-existent companies Sandeep Corporations, SA Enterprise, Arabi Enterprise, Drinan Apparels Ltd, Varna, Amexo and P&L International Ltd.
Halder took the rest of the amount, using the name of MTB Marine Ltd–another borrower of FAS Finance and Investment Ltd, using customer cheques of One Bank Ltd, Mercantile Bank Ltd and Bank Asia Ltd.
Similarly, Tk35 crore was issued in the name of Moon enterprises, Tk38 crore for Messrs Bernarbi Enterprise and Tk40 crore for Anan Chemical Industries Ltd.
In addition, Tk174 crore was issued in the name of Newtech Enterprise Ltd, Nature Enterprise Ltd, Deya Shipping Ltd and MTB Marine Ltd. The four non-existent organizations took another Tk60 crore in loans later as well.
The ACC inquiry panel also found that Purnima Rani Haldar, wife of PK Halder’s associate Swapan Kumar Mistry, took a loan of Tk60 crore as working capital for MTB Marine Ltd, but the amount was transferred to several bank accounts and made-up institutes owned by PK Halder’s relatives and associates, including former Mercantile Bank Ltd director AKM Shaheed Reza.
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Halder’s associates Kolasin Ltd Chairman Atish Mridha and his brother Uttam Kumar Mistri took Tk79.70 crore in loans while Songkho Bepari, owner of Moon Enterprise, took Tk83.34 crore.
Later, Halder’s cousin Amitav Adhikari transferred these amounts to different accounts of Sigma Capital Management Ltd, Hal International, Paramount Spinning Ltd, NRB Global Ltd and Bank Asia’s Dhanmondi branch.
Arthscope Ltd Chairman Mira Deuri and MD Prashant Deuri took Tk75 crore, while Neutral Ltd owners Swapan Kumar Mistry and Kazi Mumrez Mahmud took Tk80 crore loan from ILFSL.
Anan Chemical owner Amitabh Adhikari, Purnima Rani Haldar, Rajiv Som, Ratan Kumar Biswas, Omar Sharif took Tk71 crore from ILFSL as well as FAS Finance.
The sums were later transferred to another account created by PK Halder, the ACC said in its report.
The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) of the central bank said that about Tk2,200 crore from FAS Finance and Investment Ltd, Tk2,500 crore from Reliance Finance Ltd and about Tk3,000 crore from People's Leasing and Financial Services Ltd was embezzled and laundered using the names of non-existent institutions.
The BFIU said there was no mortgage against the loans, meaning there was no possibility of recovering them.
With the help of the BFIU, the government has so far frozen over Tk2,700 crore of Halder’s money, of which around Tk1,400 crore was with different bank accounts.