Henolux owner Nurul Amin’s rise: from homeopathy to skin-whitening creams

Nurul Amin, managing director of Amin Manufacturing Co Ltd, had started his career as an employee of a homeopathy shop. He did not have to look back after he launched a business of skin-whitening creams under the brand name Henolux.

His assets now include a flat, a 10-storey building and a duplex house in Dhaka, the Rapid Action Battalion said on Wednesday, a day after arresting him and his wife Fatema Amin, also a director of the company, on charges of provoking a contractor to die by suicide.  

The contractor, Anisur Rahman alias Gazi Anis, set himself on fire at the National Press Club premises in Dhaka on Monday after failing to make Nurul repay the investments he made in the company. Anis succumbed to his burn injuries a day after the incident. He was a former president of Bangladesh Chhatra League’s Kushtia district unit. 

The couple left their flat in Kakrail and hid in a relative’s house in Uttara, from where they were arrested, RAB spokesman Commander Khandaker Al Moin said at a press conference.

Nurul admitted that he had a business deal with Anis but claimed that the deal was not worth Tk 30 million as mentioned in a case started by Anis’s brother Nazrul Islam.

Moin said the investigation officer will look into the amount Nurul owed Amin.

RAB could not confirm immediately if anyone else is owed by Nurul or his company. The authorities will investigate if someone else files such complaints against Nurul and his company, the RAB official added.

Nurul joined Kader Homeo Hall in Dhaka’s Gopibagh after completing his study at a homeopathy college in the 1980s. He opened a separate company and started producing and selling Henolux skin-whitening creams in 1991.

The company sold Henolux Complexion Cream, Henolux Spot Cream, Henolux Mechta Out Cream and Henolux Hair Oil. The products gained fame in Bangladesh as there was no local competitor.

The company suspended production in 2016 due to a sharp drop in demand. Nurul opened a company named Amin Herbal in 2011.

The Henolux owner and his wife met Anis in 2017. They went to India for treatment a year after their meeting and got closer as they were staying at the same hotel.

Nurul requested Anis to invest in the company so that they could resume producing Henolux creams and Anis agreed. He invested Tk 10 million in the first phase and Tk 2.6 million in the second phase at Nurul’s request, according to the case.

He made fortune with this business and developed a huge property including a flat in Kakrail, 10-storey Sky View Henolux Complex in Purana Paltan, a duplex house in Pink City Model Town, a building at Kadamtali’s Meraj Nagar and a factory in Kadamtali’s Mohammadpur, Moin said.

But the factory is no more used to produce Henolux products as Nurul rented those to other companies.