S MD Jasim Uddin Chisty, the managing director of the controversial e-commerce platform Dhamaka that owes a total of Tk480 crores to merchants and consumers, has been found embezzling Tk84 crore of consumer money taken in advance.
According to an investigation report submitted by the central bank to the commerce ministry in December, Chisty shifted the amount to his personal account, providing Tk25 crore in loans to companies owned by him, and embezzling another Tk20 crore citing software purchases.
The platform currently owes Tk303 crore to customers and another Tk167 crore to merchants, having Tk480 crore worth of liability, but only has Tk45.28 lakh in its bank account, according to central bank reports.
According to the report, Dhamaka had sold products worth Tk724 crore to customers for Tk402 crore, which created a deficit of Tk322 crore.
However, the sales were only recorded on paper without any actual sales taking place in reality, as a large portion of consumer money was paid back to consumers through cash and checks instead of delivering the products, helping several top officials of the platform to scam money in the process without even trading with merchants.
The central bank reached such conclusions after analyzing data from multiple merchants of the platform, further stating the need to bring all perpetrators to justice for unearthing further information on the platform’s Ponzi scheme carried out by several of its top officials, including CEO Sirajul Islam Rana, and his brother Md Selim Hossain.
Sirajul Islam Rana and two other officials are already behind bars following a case filed by a consumer in September of last year; however, Jasim Uddin Chisty was able to leave Bangladesh for USA last April, denying any embezzlement.
“I have collected Tk580 crore from my customers and delivered products worth Tk542 crore. So, how did I launder money?” he had said going live on Facebook from the US, following the crackdown on the platform by authorities.
The central bank earlier ordered freezing 14 bank accounts related to the platform including the personal bank accounts of Jasim Uddin Chisty, of which five were in his name, seven in the name of Invariant Telecom Bangladesh Ltd, one each in the names of Micro Trade and Micro Food and Beverage.
The frozen bank accounts are with City Bank, Eastern Bank Limited, South-East Bank, Prime Bank and three with Brac Bank and Dutch-Bangla Bank each.
Dhamaka Shopping is an e-commerce business of Invariant Telecom Bangladesh Limited, a concern of the Microtrade Group. Other companies in the group are Invariant Technologies, Microtrade Food and Beverage, and Microtrade ICX Ltd.
An investigation carried out by CID earlier also revealed that Dhamaka started business in November last year without opening any bank account of its own and instead collected money from buyers through those accounts.
Five officials, including the company's Chief Operating Officer Sirajul Islam Rana, were banned from travelling abroad and their national identity (NID) cards also were blocked.
Dhamaka Shopping had over two lakh registered customers and some 11,000 vendors supplied products to the company and began luring online shoppers with its “T-shirt for Tk10” campaign in November 2020 collecting a huge amount of money in advance by offering 40-50% discounts on various products, including motorbikes, like all other rogue platforms.
According to investigation reports by the central bank to the Commerce Ministry on December 26, the company (which has suspended operations), collected Tk736 crore from customers and paid only Tk557 crore to companies that sold products on its platform.