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Published : 14 Mar 2025, 02:18 AM
The Anti-Corruption Commission, or ACC, has pressed charges against Salman F Rahman, ex-advisor to former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, his son Ahmed Shayan Fazlur Rahman and nephew Ahmed Shahryar Rahman for allegedly laundering millions through a shell company in London.
According to the agency, the accused laundered Tk 760 million and embezzled an additional Tk 336.4 million in bank loans.
At least 11 individuals, including seven officials from National Bank, have been made defendants in the case.
A separate case alleges the laundering of another Tk 1.13 billion, with six IFIC Bank officials also implicated.
Zakia Tazin, a former managing director of Index Power and Energy Limited, was named in both cases.
ACC Director General Md Akhtar Hossain announced the charges on Thursday, marking the latest in a series of legal troubles for Salman, who remains in jail on multiple charges, including a murder case stemming from the government’s crackdown on student protests.
Authorities have intensified their scrutiny of Salman Rahman, vice chairman of the Beximco Group and former chairman of IFIC Bank.
Investigations by the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit, or BFIU, the National Board of Revenue, or NBR, the Criminal Investigation Department, or CID, and the ACC are ongoing, examining allegations of fraud, loan irregularities, and money laundering.
Earlier, the court, acting on an ACC petition, ordered the seizure of two properties in London belonging to Salman and his son Shayan on Mar 10.
The court also froze two bank accounts in Dubai and shares in RR Trading Company held by Shahryar.
Salman’s wife, Syeda Rubaba Rahman, his brother and Beximco Chairman Sohail F Rahman, and other family members have been barred from leaving the country.
The ACC’s first case, filed by the commission’s Deputy Director Kamalesh Mandal at the commission’s Dhaka-1 office, alleges that the accused misused their influence to secure loans for Index Power and Energy Limited, a Beximco Group company.
According to investigators, Salman funnelled nearly Tk 760 million through a letter of credit from a fictitious firm in the British Virgin Islands, purportedly to acquire technical drawings and designs for Index Power and Energy (Unit-2).
However, no such materials were ever received, and the funds were allegedly siphoned abroad using falsified documents.
Despite the eight-year lapse since the LC was established, investigators claim that a “force loan” of nearly Tk 336.4 million remains unpaid to the bank, constituting financial embezzlement.
A second case, also filed by Mandal at Dhaka-1, implicates Salman and nine others in an additional money laundering scheme.
The complaint centres on Agro Index Limited, a company led by Zakia, a well-known television personality with no prior experience in the fish processing business.
Investigators assert that Zakia was closely linked to the Beximco Group and its executives, including Shayan and Shahryar, who collectively held an 80 percent stake in Index Power and Energy Unit-2.
Despite lacking collateral, she was allegedly able to secure nearly Tk 1.47 billion loan from IFIC Bank with Salman’s direct intervention.
The funds, intended for a hilsa processing factory, were never utilised for the project.
Instead, a court filing claims that Tk 1.13 billion was illicitly transferred and laundered.
The facility never commenced production due to an ongoing dispute over land ownership with the Water Development Board, yet bank officials allegedly wrote off portions of the loan under Salman’s influence.
