The G4S Chittagong city office, robbed of Tk3 crore on October 12, was storing Tk54 crore belonging to banks and other private owners even though Bangladesh Bank (BB) does not allow security companies to store bank money.
Group Four Security Services (G4S) Chittagong Vice President Khurshid Irtiza Chowdhury said his company was storing Tk54 crore belonging to private owners and six banks at its premises in the port city’s Khulshi area when Tk3 crore was stolen from its vaults.
G4S Senior Vice President Tarikul said his company had legal permission from Bangladesh Bank to store and transport cash money.
But Bangladesh Bank (BB) Executive Director Mahfuzur Rahman, who is the spokesman of the country’s central bank, said the central bank does not allow security companies to store bank money.
The BB executive director who said: “G4S is not a registered company of Bangladesh Bank. It is run under the Companies Act. They cannot store the money of banks in their vaults. It is not legal.”
Cash belonging to six banks including Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC and Dutch Bangla Bank and other private owners had been placed in the private security company’s vaults.
Officer-in-Charge (OC) Mainul Islam Bhuiyan of Khulshi police station said the company did not inform the police about the storage of such a large amount of money at their office.
“The company did not even inform the police in a timely fashion after the theft took place,” the OC said, referring to the 24-hour gap between the time the robbery, caught on CCTV, took place and the time G4S reported it to police.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police Commissioner Abdul Jalil Mandal said police were looking into the entire incident along with the legal grounds of G4S to store the huge amount of bank money.
RAB makes arrest in Chittagong
G4S robbery
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) yesterday arrested the man believed to be responsible for the theft of Tk3 crore from the Chittagong city office of Group Four Security (G4S) Services Bangladesh Private Limited.
On October 12, G4S security guard Shahidul Haque Shantan, 24, of Narsingdi district, who was on duty when the theft took place, allegedly donned a mask and robbed Tk3 crore from the office vault.
G4S Senior Manager Tarique Mansur lodged a case in the early hours of Monday after an analysis of the CCTV footage from the early hours of Sunday, nearly 24 hours previously, showed that a robbery had taken place.
RAB 7 Commanding Officer (CO) Lieutenant Colonel Mifta Uddin said his force, acting on a tip off, arrested Shantan from the Rangamati Government College area around 7am, adding that Shantan admitted to stealing the money from the G4S vault.
In a press conference at RAB 7 Headquarters in the city’s Patenga area around 11:30am, the CO said RAB had recovered the mask and gloves used in the theft.
Shantan broke four security doors after three hours of effort in the early hours of October 12 while another on-duty security guard, Rafiqul Islam, and front desk staff, Rabiul Hossain, were fast asleep.
“G4S did not pay my salary and bonuses during Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha. I stole the money because I was angry about this. I have been planning for this since October 6,” Shantan said. He claimed that he had planned to distribute the money to the poor and to oppressed women.
Shantan, who worked at G4S since June 13, 2013, said the three other people detained in connection with the theft, Rabiul, Rafiqul and Bashirul were not linked to the theft.
G4S Senior Vice President Major (retd) Tarikul Islam, who was present at the conference, denied the allegation that the company was not paying its employees properly and on time.
Avoiding journalists’ questions, he said, “We are looking into the matter and we will organise a separate press conference to brief the media about the incident.”
The Detective Branch (DB) of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) on Tuesday recovered Tk29,950,000 of the stolen Tk3 crore from the residence of Md Bashirul Alam, 24, the muezzin of Chittagong City College Jame Mosque in the city’s Sadarghat area. Bashirul is from Maheshkhali Island in Cox’s Bazar district.
The RAB 7 CO said officers found just Tk257 in Shantan’s possession. He was planning to take a job in Rangamati, officers said. Investigators said they had not traced the missing Tk50,000.
Shantan told reporters he kept all of the money at Bashirul’s residence. The RAB 7 chief said police were looking into the matter.
Khurshid Irtiza Chowdhury, the company’s Chittagong vice president, told the Dhaka Tribune that G4S had formed a four-member inquiry team led by Tarikul Islam, a retired major and senior vice president of the company, to investigate the matter.
He said the company’s Chittagong office, with 2,000 staff members and security guards, was shifting premises from Khulshi road 4 to road 1, and said the thief took advantage of lax monitoring during this time to make his move.