Controversial business tycoon and alleged arms trader Moosa Bin Shamsher owns at least $12bn, equal to Tk92,000 crore, left frozen in the Swiss Bank, and around 193 hectares of land in Gazipur.
The amount is a third of the recently proposed budget and almost equal to the country’s Annual Development Programme.
Moosa acknowledged the amount in his wealth statement filed before the Anti-Corruption Commission yesterday.
His lawyer submitted the statement, comprising information on his movable and immovable properties, to ACC Secretary Maksudul Hasan Khan. ACC Commissioner M Sahabuddin Chuppu confirmed this to the Dhaka Tribune but did not want to elaborate further.
“The commission will review the statement and then go for further decision,” he said.
In the statement, Moosa said that the 193 hectares of land was not currently under his possession as he had failed to pay the taxes during mutation. The land was purchased after 1971 when Moosa had been staying abroad.
The ACC inquiry team came to know about the $7bn frozen money in Swiss Bank during interrogation on December 18 last year. Moosa claimed that he had earned the money legally while doing business abroad.
He claimed that the central banks of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan had deposited the amounts in his Swiss Bank account with regard to defence-related purchases.
On May 19, the commission issued a notice to Moosa’s manpower recruiting agency office DATCO to file his wealth statement by seven days. ACC Chairman M Bodiuzzaman approved the notice on May 5.
Moosa, however, sought time until May 26 and finally filed the statement yesterday.
The ACC recently also asked the Bangladesh Bank to look into Moosa’s Swiss Bank account, said sources.
A team led by ACC Senior Deputy Director Mir Jainul Abedin Shibli started the inquiry against Moosa on November 3 last year. Shibli is the third inquiry officer on this matter. The ACC earlier initiated inquiries against him in 2010 and 2011 following newspaper reports.
