The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has finally decided to launch inquiry against the people, who accumulated illegal wealth allegedly through conducting casino-related activities.
The national anti-graft watchdog took the decision at an emergency meeting on Monday, after nearly two weeks since the law-enforcement agencies busted casino operations in the country's various sporting clubs.
The commission's secretary Md Dilwar Bakth confirmed the development at a press briefing at its headquarters in the capital's Segun Bagicha area.
As part of the decision, the ACC has assigned its director Syed Iqbal Hossain as inquiry official, and asked its director general (special investigation) Sayeed Mahbub Khan to monitor the whole proceedings, he said.
"The inquiry will be conducted against the people, having allegations of amassing wealth beyond known sources of income and through casino operations."
Responding to a question, the ACC secretary said they have a list of people, who might have been involved in handling undocumented earnings through casino activities.
"Our officials will scrutinise and probe into these things," he said without giving any further details about the list.
Responding to another query whether or not the commission will conduct investigation against Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) former general secretary Siddiqui Nazmul Alam, the ACC secretary said they are scrutinising documents related to Nazmul.
Nazmul came into the limelight after different media published reports that he has amassed illegal wealth abroad.
The issue of casino operations in the sporting clubs surfaced on September 18, when members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) simultaneously raided four clubs in the city.
In the operations, the elite force members recovered a huge quantity of casino equipments, gambling materials, foreign liquors and cash money, and also detained 142 people from those clubs.
Two days after the crackdown, the law-enforcement agency arrested Jubo League leader-cum-tender manipulator G K Shamim along with his seven armed bodyguards from own construction firm.
Cash money worth Tk 18 million and documents of FDR (fixed deposit receipt) amounting to Tk 1.65 billion were also seized from the office.
The force later launched raids on the residences of Gendaria unit Awami League leader Enamul Haque and his brother Rupon Bhuiyan, and seized cash worth Tk 50 million and eight kgs of gold ornaments.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) has already frozen bank accounts of detained G K Shamim, Jubo League leader Khaled Hossain Bhuiyan, and Kalabagan Krirachakra president Shafiqul Alam Firoz.
At the same time, the BB's Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) sought information regarding bank accounts of a number of people, including ruling party lawmaker Nurunnabi Chowdhury Shawon.
Other individuals, whose bank account-related information were sought, included Shawon's wife Farzana Chowdhury, Jubo League leader Ismail Chowdhury Samrat, and former chief engineer of Public Works Department (PWD) M Rafiqul Islam and its additional engineer Abdul Hye.
Meanwhile, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) detained an alleged ringleader of online casino operations from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) in the city on Monday.
The arrestee was identified as Selim Pradhan, the alleged coordinator of online casino operations in Bangladesh.
The RAB director (legal and media wing) Lt Col Md Sarwar Bin Kashem confirmed the arrest, saying that they picked him up from a Thai Airways flight - TG 322 - just before it was taking off for Bangkok.
On secret information, the elite force members went to the airport and arrested Selim, who was a business class passenger, from the aircraft at about 1:15 pm.
He said they had information that Selim is the online casino coordinator, but could not ascertain whether the detainee has any political affiliation or not. "It will be confirmed after inquiry," he added.
Meanwhile, the National Board of Revenue's (NBR) Customs Intelligence Cell (CIC) in two separate raids recovered casino equipment from two business establishments in Narayanganj and Munshiganj.
On Sunday, the CIC personnel on a tip-off raided a mobile phone factory, named Best Tycoon (BD) Enterprise Limited, and recovered casino equipment from there.
The factory authority brought those items through misdeclaration of products, and thus dodged taxes.
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