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Published : 29 Jan 2025, 06:24 PM
A Dhaka court has sentenced Mohammad Rassel, the founder of e-commerce company Evaly, and his wife Shamima Nasrin, the company’s chairman, to two years in prison each in a case of breach of trust and fraud.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Partha Bhadra announced the verdict on Wednesday. In addition to the prison sentence, he fined the two defendants Tk 10,000 each and sentenced them to two months in prison if they failed to pay the fine.
Neither Rassel nor Shamima was present in court for the verdict. The judge issued a warrant of arrest along with their sentences, identifying them as “fugitives”, said the plaintiff's lawyer Tausif Mahmud.
After launching in December 2018, online marketplace Evaly grew in popularity by advertising products like cars, motorcycles, furniture, smart TVs, refrigerators, ACs, and washing machines at sharply reduced prices.
Many people, lured in by the flashy offers, ordered products and paid huge amounts of money in advance, with some of them hoping to make good profits by selling the products at a higher price later on. However, many of these customers did not receive the products they ordered, even after waiting for months. The money Evaly collected as advances was not returned to the customers either.
Evaly's liabilities to customers and suppliers eventually amounted to Tk 5.43 billion. Amid the controversy, disgruntled customers launched protests against Evaly and several other e-commerce companies in 2021, accusing them of fraud and embezzlement.
Hundreds of cases were filed against Rassel and Shamima. This case is one of them.
A customer named Toufiq Mahmud filed the case in court on Feb 4.
According to the case details, Toufiq ordered a Yamaha motorcycle from Evaly on Mar 20, 2021, “attracted” by the eye-catching advertisement. He paid Tk 245,000 for it.
On Apr 3 of that year, he ordered two more motorcycles, paying a combined Tk 590,000 for them. But Evaly failed to deliver the three vehicles within the promised 45 days.
Toufiq later contacted Evaly's Dhanmondi office. The authorities gave him two cheques to reimburse. However, when he went to the bank, the bank urged him not to deposit the cheque on the specified date as there was not enough money.
When he did not receive his refund, he sent a legal notice. When that did not work, he went to court and filed a case against Rassel and Shamima.
Rassel and his wife Shamima were arrested by RAB in Dhaka’s Mohammadpur on Sept 16, 2021, in a case filed by a customer. After that, they were shown arrested in various cases and even remanded for questioning in custody.
To facilitate the accounting process involved in Evaly's restructuring, the court granted conditional bail to Shamima within a year. Later, Rassel was also released on bail.
On Jun 2, 2024, a court in Chattogram sentenced Rassel and Shamima to one year in prison each in a cheque fraud case.
