Falu among 3 charged with laundering Tk184cr to Dubai
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has submitted a charge sheet against three persons, including Mosaddek Ali Falu, former adviser to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia, in a case filed for setting up offshore companies and siphoning off Tk183.92 crore to Dubai.
Gulshan Anwar Pradhan, deputy director of the ACC, submitted the charge sheet to the court on Tuesday.
Syed Iqbal Hossain, ACC director and supervisory officer of the case, confirmed the news to The Business Standard.
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Four persons were primarily accused in the case filed by the ACC on 13 May 2019, but one of them was dropped from the charge sheet as his involvement in the incident could not be established.
Apart from Falu, the other two accused are BNP leader SAK Ikramuzzaman, director of RAK Paints Limited, and Syed AK Anwaruzzaman, director of Star Ceramics Private Limited.
The one whose name was dropped from the charge sheet is Amir Hossain, another director of Star Ceramics and former director of RAK Consumer Products Limited.
According to the charge sheet, the accused opened offshore companies Al Medina International Limited, Three Star Limited, and Development UAE, in Dubai in 2010, and laundered Tk183.92 crore to Dubai, acquired by corrupt means in Bangladesh.
The accused could not show the source of their money in Dubai nor do they have any legitimate evidence for what is the source of the money.
They neither informed Bangladesh Bank, nor took any permission from it to do business in Dubai, according to the charge sheet.
In the course of case investigation, upon the ACC's request, the court ordered the confiscation of Falu's assets of around Tk350 crore in October 2019.
According to the ACC, a Mutual Legal Assistance Request (MLAR) has already been sent to Dubai to determine the details of Falu's assets there. Once the information is obtained, it will also be submitted to the court as evidence.
Falu was the political secretary of the then Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, during the four-party coalition government. He was also elected a lawmaker from a Dhaka constituency in a by-election at that time.
Later, Khaleda Zia made him a member of BNP's advisory council. In 2016, he was removed from the advisory council and made vice-chairman in the BNP's new committee. Falu eventually resigned from the party.
Since then, Falu has been inactive in politics and has been running his own business. As a businessman he has been active in securities, real estate, agriculture, import and export, and is the chairman and managing director of private TV channel NTV. The ACC has filed several cases against him before.
