Destiny Group, mired in controversy for its multilevel marketing business, has urged the authorities to unfreeze its bank accounts on humanitarian grounds, sources say.
The humanitarian grounds include paying salaries, allowances, and bonuses to its employees, as well as making refunds to its investors, ahead of Eid-Ul-Adha.
Chief Executive Officer of Destiny Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society Limited Mohammad Rafiqul Amin has sent a letter to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in this regard.
The request, sent on May 17, said the money was needed to clear the employees' outstanding salaries and facilitate partial refunds to the retail investors.
Amin claimed Destiny Group had fallen victim to political vendetta and aggressive "yellow journalism" under the previous regime.
He said its entities had faced regulatory wrath and legal action based on fabricated allegations, which ultimately led to the filing of two money laundering cases with Kalabagan Police Station under the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2009 and 2012.
The letter noted that while legal proceedings were initiated against only a few corporate directors, the authorities proceeded to freeze all operational bank accounts and attach the movable and immovable properties of the entire business group.
Amin, who was given a 12-year prison sentence by a lower court after a legal battle spanning over 12 years, argued that the assets and bank accounts were never officially transferred to the current management.
Because of the asset freeze, the employees had been deprived of their wages, allowances, and festive bonuses for years, while the field-level investors remained unable to recoup their deposits, he said.
The Destiny top brass highlighted a major legal breakthrough on September 1, 2022, when the Company Bench of the High Court Division issued a directive to resume the business group's operations.
Following the court order, a 19-member special management board was constituted, and the Bangladesh Bank was directed to facilitate the revival of Destiny's commercial operations.
Despite the judicial directive, the company has been unable to access its funds, leaving its financial operations choked.
In the letter, Amin requested special administrative permission from the finance ministry to utilise funds from the frozen bank accounts strictly to settle outstanding staff liabilities and begin the process of returning funds to the affected depositors.
Destiny launched its multilevel marketing business in 2000 and raised Tk 41.16 billion by 2012.
It claims to have 4.5 million customers, buyers, and distributors, according to a report.
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