A Dhaka court on Monday ordered the seizure of 36 bighas of land in Gazipur owned by Salman F Rahman, former adviser on private industry and investment to the prime minister.
The court also ordered freeze on his IFIC Bank account containing Tk546.6 million.
Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Md Sabbir Foyez issued the order after hearing a petition from the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
ACC Assistant Director Sazzad Hossain told the court that Rahman had been trying to transfer or change ownership of his assets, both movable and immovable. Because of this, the ACC requested an urgent freeze on those.
The ACC filed a case on April 20, accusing Rahman and several others of cheating investors out of nearly Tk 8.0 billion by massively inflating the value of mortgaged land to obtain bond financing. Former BSEC chairman Shibli Rubaiyat-Ul-Islam and 29 others are also accused.
According to the case details, the accused worked together to bypass important regulatory checks-such as the required CIB report and proper inspections-to artificially increase the land value from Tk 870 million to Tk 10.20 billion.
The ACC says a newly registered, inexperienced company raised Tk 10 billion through bonds and transferred the money into the current account of Sreepur Township Ltd.
Out of that amount, Tk 2.00 billion was turned into FDRs, while the remaining Tk 8.0 billion was sent to accounts of Beximco Engineering Ltd, other Beximco companies, and several additional organisations.
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