Businessman Badal, wife Soma’s assets frozen in corruption probe

The authorities have frozen assets worth over billions of taka of businessman Lutfar Rahman Badal and his wife Soma Alam Rahman following court orders on corruption charges.

The assets include bank accounts, shares, and buildings and pieces of land in the capital.

The buildings in Dhaka are the house no. 68 on road no. 5 at Banani Old DOHS, a three-storey building at Baridhara Model Town, Royal Plaza at Dhanmondi, Golf Heights at Banani, a house at Gulshan’s Bhatara, and land at Kakrail and Ramna, according to the Anti-Corruption Commission or ACC.

The seized immoveable assets of the couple include their single and joint accounts at South East Bank, Tk 50,000 shares of Oasis Engineering and Construction Limited, Tk 100,000 shares of Sinclair Pharmaceuticals, Tk 1.25 million shares of Latif Securities Limited, Tk 50,000 shares of BC Corporation, Tk 6 million shares of Diaper Limited, Tk 10 million shares of Bengal Media Corporation, Tk 6.325 million shares of Al Manar Hospital and Tk 4.181 million shares of Union Insurance.

The investigator also said the authorities froze moveable and immovable assets of the couple in Narayanganj, Narsinghdi and different other places.

ACC Deputy Director Mosharraf Hossain Mridha, who is investigating charges that the couple have made illegal wealth, told bdnews24.com on Sunday about the implementation of the court orders.

ACC spokesperson Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya said Dhaka Metropolitan Special Judge’s Court, Narayanganj Senior Special Judge’s Court and Narsinghdi Senior Special Judge’s Court had issued the orders to freeze Badal and Soma’s assets recently following ACC pleas.

The respective district administrations, banks and financial institutions had been asked to execute the orders, Pranab said.

The ACC prosecuted Badal and Soma separately in two cases on May 28 and 29 in 2017 on charges of amassing illegal wealth.

Badal owns movable and immovable assets worth over Tk 1.30 billion while Soma owns assets worth over Tk 1.37 billion, according to the case dossiers.

The ACC has accused Badal of hiding information of earning assets worth around Tk 600 million.

Soma is charged with earning assets worth around Tk 930 million, which is inconsistent with her income. She also hid information on assets worth Tk 20 million, the ACC alleges.

ACC Deputy Director Mridha said he found “a huge amount” of other assets of the couple in investigation.

The ACC pleaded with courts to have Badal and Soma’s assets frozen for the sake of investigation after learning that the couple were trying to transfer them, the ACC investigator said.

“It would be almost impossible to confiscate the assets and collect the fines if they transfer these assets,” he added in the plea.

Badal is a much discussed name in Bangladesh’s financial sector. He is said to have rapidly accumulated enormous fortunes from the share market. His name had also surfaced on different occasions over alleged stock market manipulation.

The Bangladesh Bank removed him from the IFIC Bank as one of its directors on Oct 29, 2015 after allegations surfaced that he had backed acts of sabotage during the agitation against the Awami League government.

Badal was a co-owner of NTV and RTV established by former BNP MP Mosaddek Ali Falu. RTV's ownership later changed during the 2007-08 military-controlled caretaker government.

Known as a sport organiser, Badal is no stranger to the twists of fate.

As the owner of ‘Legends of Rupganj’ club in the Dhaka Premier League, he had touched off controversy by remarking about the Bangladesh Cricket Board president in 2014. It led him to be banned for life from cricket by the BCB.

Bangladesh Bank removes Lutfar Rahman Badal from IFIC Bank's board