Money laundered by PK Halder will be brought back, trial to start soon: AG
The money laundered by former NRB Global Bank MD Prashanta Kumar Halder alias PK Halder will be brought back to Bangladesh, said Attorney General AM Amin Uddin.
The main legal advisor to the government said that trials against PK Halder will start immediately after he returns home.
Responding to questions from reporters at his office in Dhaka on Sunday noon, he said, "The money smuggled by PK Halder is ours. We have an agreement with India."
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"There is also the MLF agreement. We will try to get the money back through these channels," he added.
In response to another question, AM Amin Uddin said, "Whether PK Halder returns or not, is not an issue. The trials against him have begun as per the law.
"Besides, it is a great achievement for the country that he was arrested in India as per the information provided by the Bangladesh government."
According to the ACC, PK Halder has swindled at least Tk11,000 crore from various organisations.
Sources at the ACC said the amount of swindled money they so far learned about during the investigation of the case may increase.
PK Halder has embezzled around Tk3,500 crore from ILFSL, Tk2,200 crore from FAS Finance, Tk2,500 crore from Reliance Finance and Tk3,000 crore from People's Leasing.
Sources at the anti-graft body further said that they had also identified more Tk1,500 crore which they said would be frozen.
According to ACC records, PK Halder, when he was the managing director of Reliance and an independent director of several other leasing companies, along with his relatives, misappropriated Tk3,500 crore from several leasing companies, including People's Leasing.
Halder sold assets of all these companies and took away all the money by selling the shares from the share portfolio of the depositors.
In May 2021, a businessman filed a case with a Chattogram court against four people, including PK Halder, seeking compensation of Tk930 crore.
The same year it was found that PK Halder had also swindled Tk1,300 crore from FAS Finance in the name of several companies that existed on paper only.
In August of this year, the ACC filed a money laundering case against PK Halder and his associates on grounds of laundering Tk36.37 crore.
The embezzlement came to light after the ACC investigated the casino owners' assets back in 2020.
PK Halder allegedly also siphoned off Tk1,000 crore to Canada, Singapore and India, the ACC investigation revealed.
