ACC bans foreign travel of four more AB Bank officials

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on Thursday imposed a ban on foreign travel of four more officials of AB Bank Limited. The Immigration Authority has been informed of this ban through a letter signed by the ACC director Syed Iqbal Hossain. The four AB Bank officials are- Head of Corporate Mahfuz ul Islam, Head of Offshore Banking Unit (OBU) Mohammad Lokman, Bank Company Secretary Mohadeb Sarkar Suman, and head office official M N Azim. Before that, the ACC imposed a ban on foreign travel by 12 former and present officials of AB Bank Limited including its Chairman M Wahidul Haque and two former managing directors. ACC sent a letter to Immigration Authority as it found primary evidences of money laundering of $20 million. ACC Director Syed Iqbal confirmed this information. Meanwhile, the bank’s client trader Saiful Haque was asked to appear on Thursday for interrogation. But he did not attend. The ACC said seven directors of AB Bank will be interrogated for investigation on January 7. The directors are - Shishar Ranjan Bose, Md. Mejbahul Haque, Md. Fahimul Haque, Syed Afzal Hasan Uddin, deleted Runa Zakia and Md. Anwar Jamil Siddiqui. In this case, 9 senior officials including former chairman M Wahidul Haque, former managing director M Fazlar Rahman and Shamim Ahmed Chowdhury have already been interrogated. The ACC sources said, a Dubai-based company, PGIF was given a loan of 20 million dollars after an agreement was signed. However, the AB Bank officials failed to show any name or identity of the company's officials. Rather, the bank authorities transferred the money to a personal account. After the money went to Dubai in three installments, the racket has closed the bank account. The bank authority does not have any further information about this. According to the ACC investigation, two persons named- Khurram and Abdus Samad have been appointed as mediators for the loan. Besides, the ACC got evidence of the bank’s chairman and senior officials traveling to Dubai more than once. On December 21, the country's first private bank, AB Bank's former Chairman M Wahidul Haque, Vice-Chairman Salim Ahmed and Director Fahimul Haque resigned. They resigned at the bank's Annual General Meeting (AGM) at Dhaka’s La Meridien Hotel. The accused could not immediately be reached for comment.  This article was first published on Bangla Tribune