An Anti-Corruption Commission probe team Thursday submitted its report on the Tk15.7bn scam from Sonali Bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Branch by the Hall-Mark Group and its five business entities to the commission’s Director General Ziauddin Ahmed.
“After scrutiny by the DG, the report will be submitted to the commission, hopefully sometime next week,” an ACC official said.
ACC Commissioner M Shahbuddin confirmed reporters that the commission probe team had submitted its report to the director general Thursday.
“The DG has received the probe report, but it is yet to be submitted before the commission for consideration. I am expecting to have the report soon,” he said.
The commissioner also said: “Though the 11 cases against the Hall-Mark and Sonali Bank officials account for a Tk15.7bn scam, but the commission has found evidence that more money had been embezzled by the company.”
In July, a progress report on the scam was submitted to the commission.
ACC Secretary Faizur Rahman Chowdhury on August 22 told journalists that the commission would submit the probe report “within the next week.”
On July 24, ACC Chairman M Bodiuzzaman at an informal briefing told the media that the investigation team would submit the charge sheet before the commission “within the next 15 days.”
Following a letter from Bangladesh Bank on July 15 last year, the anti-graft agency formed a six-member probe committee to conduct an inquiry into the allegations of a loan scam against the little known firm.
According to an investigation report the central bank released in May last year, Hall-Mark and the five other companies, with the connivance of a number of Sonali Bank officials, had taken out loans for Tk35.5bn from the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of Sonali Bank using forged documents.
Of the money, Hall-Mark alone swindled around Tk26bn while its business entities individually swindled billions more.
On the basis of several petitions filed by the ACC, the court on June 26 ordered the freezing of all of the 260 bank accounts of the various Hall-Mark businesses.
During investigation, the ACC on October 4 last year filed 11 cases against seven top executives of Hall-Mark Group and 20 officials of Sonali Bank for embezzling Tk15.7bn of funded and approximately Tk12.8bn non-funded money.