The ACC has approved cases against 10 individuals, including the two sons of businessman Saiful Alam (S Alam Group), for evading Tk 750 million in taxes.
In another development, the anti-corruption body decided to file many more cases against other businessmen for embezzling money and illegally acquiring wealth.
In one case, the accused are Saiful Alam's sons, Ashraful Alam and Asadul Alam Mahir, former Deputy Tax Commissioner Aminul Islam, and seven officials of Security Islami Bank, including Senior Vice President Md Helal Uddin, Branch Head Muhammad Amir Hossain, former SVP Md Ahsanul Haque, former SVP Ruhul Abedin, Officer Shamima Akter, Md Anis Uddin, and Gazi Muhammad Yakub.
ACC Deputy Director Aktarul Islam revealed this at a press briefing on Wednesday.
According to the case, the accused created fake pay orders and misused them as real to whiten Tk 5.0 billion of undisclosed money.
They were supposed to pay Tk 1.25 billion in taxes but only paid Tk 500 million, depriving the government of Tk 750 million in revenue.
Earlier, three senior tax officials were suspended by the NBR in October last year for allegedly giving undue benefits to S Alam's sons in return for bribes.
The government had allowed the legalization of undisclosed money by paying a 10 percent tax between July 2020 and June 2021.
However, considering the maximum personal tax rate of 25 percent, Ashraful and Asadul should have paid Tk 1.25 billion, but they only paid Tk 500 million.
In another development, the ACC decided to file a case against a businessman and a sports organizer for illegally acquiring Tk 109.5 million in wealth.
According to the case statement, Safiullah Al Munir, a businessman and former Vice-President of the Bangladesh Hockey Federation, could only account for a legal source of Tk 4.97 million, while investigations found assets worth Tk 114.4 million in his name.
The remaining Tk 109.5 million had no valid source.
Munir is the Managing Director and CEO of Index Group, a leading industrial company.
Meanwhile, the anti-corruption body decided to file a case against 10 individuals, including ASM Abdullah, Chairman of West Apparels Limited, for embezzling more than Tk 1.02 billion through fake letters of credit (LCs) at the Narayanganj branch of Premier Bank PLC.
The accused are West Apparels Chairman ASM Abdullah, Former MD Roksan Ara Ahmed, Current MD Asif Hasan Mahmud, Director Moshiur Rahman, Director Mirza Md Anisur Rahman, Former Premier Bank Manager Md Shahid Hasan Mallik, Former Manager (Operations) Mushfiqur Alam, Former Foreign Trade In-charge and SVP Dipak Kumar Debnath, Former Credit In-charge & SVP Muhammad Mehedi Hasan Sarkar, Former AVP Md Mahmud Mostafa Jilani.
According to the case, the West Apparels officials and Premier Bank staff colluded to violate Bangladesh Bank's foreign trade guidelines.
They created 15 fake sales contracts, opened local LCs, and made paper transactions to generate forced loans. This led to an embezzlement of Tk 353.7 million.
They created two unauthorized Commitment IDs without approval from the bank's head office, allowing extra loan facilities, which caused another Tk 667 million loss.
Altogether, the total embezzlement was Tk 1.02 billion, damaging both the bank and the state.
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