ACC slaps travel ban on Falu, Ekramuzzaman for alleged $8m money laundering

The Anti-Corruption Commission has slapped a travel ban on nine businesspeople, including BNP leaders Mosaddak Ali Falu and SAK Ekramuzzaman, as it investigates charges that they have siphoned off $8 million amassed through irregularities to Dubai.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 2 August 2018, 08:21 PM
Updated : 6 Sept 2018, 08:40 PM

ACC Director Syed Iqbal Hossain asked the Department of Immigration and Passports to bar the nine from leaving Bangladesh in a letter on Thursday.

“The ACC has found the allegation true in initial investigations. It has slapped the travel ban on them after getting information that they are trying to leave the country,” ACC spokesman Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya told bdnews24.com.

BNP leader and RAK Paints Chairman SAK Ekramuzzaman, his son and the company’s Managing Director Qamar Uz Zaman, Director Shaylin Zaman Akbar, RAK Consumer Products directors Mohammad Amir Hossain ad MA Malek, Julphar Bangladesh Director Syed AK Anwaruzzaman, Roza Properties Director Ashfaque Uddin Ahmed and RAK Power Director Maksudul Karim are the other suspects.

They along with Falu are accused of smuggling out $8 million to the United Arab Emirates by opening an offshore company and through hundi, an illegal way of sending money abroad.

They earned the money allegedly through irregularities, corruption, and dupery, according to the ACC.

Falu had been the political secretary to BNP chief Khaleda Zia when she was the prime minister during the BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami government. He was also elected MP in a by-election.

Later Khaleda made him a member of her Advisory Council.

Falu resigned from the BNP after he was made a vice-chairman of the party in 2016.

Currently inactive in politics, he is busy with his businesses ranging from securities, housing, agriculture to export-import.

The ACC had prosecuted the chairman and managing director of NTV that he owns on different charges earlier.