The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has found evidence that casino kingpin Salim Prodhan laundered more than Tk10 crore in nine banks of Bangkok, Thailand.
The national anti-graft commission and Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) under Bangladesh Bank also found that the online casino businessman Salim Prodhan was involved in transactions amounting to Tk13 crore through eGP and Amar Pay.
Amar Pay is an online payment gateway service in Bangladesh, while eGP is the electronic government procurement and payment service.
A total 50 of Salim’s bank accounts have been frozen over the money laundering allegations. The ACC and BFIU found a total of about Tk7-8 crore in the accounts, which are with various government and private banks.
The documentary evidence was collected by the investigation team and BFIU over six months, highly placed sources of both ACC and BFIU told Dhaka Tribune on Tuesday.
As of October 2020, the commission found that Salim laundered around Tk 25 crore, according to the documents.
An official of BFIU said the nine banks in Thailand that Salim had transactions with include Siam Commercial Bank, Prodhan Global Trading Co Ltd, Bangkok Bank and some other financial institutions that bank for casino businesses.
“We have also sent letters to Thailand’s central bank and Singapore, seeking illegal wealth information. We know Salim has more wealth in Bangkok and Singapore,” the official added.
A top ACC official told this correspondent: “We are trying to get the money back and we have taken preparations to file the charge sheet against Salim Prodhan soon, on the basis of the latest investigation report by the ACC intelligence team. “
On September 30, Salim was arrested from a Bangkok-bound Thai Airways flight at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.
On the same day, the anti-graft body formed a probe team to investigate the assets of people who were found involved with illegal casino businesses.
Subsequently, RAB raided his home office in Gulshan, and arrested Salim’s associates Aktaruzzaman, Md Roman and Masum.
RAB also recovered 48 bottles of foreign liquor, Tk2,905,000 in local currency, foreign currency from 23 different countries worth Tk7,763,023, 12 passports, 32 cheque books of 13 banks, one large server used for operating games, four laptops and two deer hides.
On October 1, Salim and the three were jailed for six months by a mobile court under the Wildlife Conservation Act.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police submitted a charge sheet against Salim Prodhan and five of his associates over laundering of money to the tune of at least Tk13 crore on September 24.
Earlier on November 14 last year, Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge KM Imrul Kayesh allowed the ACC to take Salim on fresh remand for seven days.
On October 27, the ACC filed a case against Salim for amassing illegal wealth amounting to Tk12.27 crore.
Who is Salim?
Salim Prodhan is a loan defaulter and money launderer from Bangladesh. According to his income tax returns, he started a printing press business with funding from Japan.
Dhaka Tribune has learned that when the Awami League came to power in 2009, Salim established ties with party leaders and ministers. Two influential leaders of the party were his business partners.
Salim took loans from various banks in the country by using the names of the party leaders, laundered most of the money to Bangkok and started living a luxurious life. He escaped suspicion from the law enforcement agencies for a long time due to his ties with the ruling party.
Over the last two years, Salim began conducting a major online casino business in Bangladesh. He used to introduce himself as the “casino master” and the “head of the online casino syndicate” in Bangladesh.
According to investigations by Dhaka Tribune, over Tk 100 crore was laundered to different countries, including Thailand, by Salim every month. He has also earned thousands of crores from extortion as well as around Tk 50 crore from cattle and drug syndicates along the north-western border in Rajshahi over the last two years.
According to his family, Salim Prodhan's house is at Murtujabag in Rupganj upazila of Narayanganj. His father's name is Abdul Hannan alias Nannu Mia. Salim is the eldest of three brothers and two sisters.
CID intelligence unit sources said Salim used to supply women and girls for the “entertainment” of BNP Vice President Tareq Rahman at “Rang Mahal” under Gazipur district during the BNP regime.
In addition, Salim Prodhan admitted to a number of things during the ACC interrogation, including that he has a wife each in Russia, Japan, Thailand and Bangladesh.
Salim is associated with Lokman Hossain, director of the Cricket Board and Mohammedan Club, who was also arrested over involvement in the illegal casino business.
