Banks freeze accounts of Shahed, aides JKG’s Dr Sabrina held over test scam

The commercial banks have frozen the accounts of few people who are allegedly involved in the Covid-19 test scandal.
They froze the accounts of Regent Hospital chairman Md Shahed and director Ibrahim Khalil, JKG Healthcare chief executive officer (CEO) Ariful Chowdhury and Dr. Sabrina Arif Chowdhury, sources said.
The Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) earlier on Sunday asked the banks to freeze the accounts.
It also asked the banks to freeze the accounts of some of their organizations like Regent Hospital, Regent KCS Ltd and JKG Healthcare, they said.
The CIC sent letters to all the commercial banks and the central bank, requesting them to impose restriction on withdrawal and deposits of cash from Sunday, they added.
The tax intelligence team also sought all details of those bank accounts for further scrutiny.
Officials said the move came following the recent detection of fake test reports of COVID-19 by their organizations.
Meanwhile, Dr. Sabrina got arrested on Sunday, but Md Shahed still remained absconding.
On June 24, Police arrested Dr. Sabrina's husband Ariful for his alleged involvement in the fake test reports.
RAB claimed that the hospital handed out over 6,000 fake Covid-19 test reports and embezzled over Tk 30 million. However, such irregularities leave a severe impact in any pandemic, health experts said.
There were two branches of the hospital in Uttara and Mirpur. Various irregularities were detected in the Uttara branch during operations by a mobile court of RAB.
Earlier, the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) had ordered stopping all activities of Regent Hospital in Dhaka after such scam was detected.
The activities of the hospital were stopped immediately due to the irregularities, and in accordance with the Medical Practice & Private Clinic & Laboratories Regulation Ordinance, 1982.
It has been alleged that the hospital was exorbitantly charging from the patients.
The hospital was charging patients despite it had an agreement with the DGHS that it would provide free treatment to the Covid-19 patients.
But, it had submitted vouchers to the government claiming patients were being treated for free, sources said.
According to RAB, the Regent Hospital has no licence since 2014.
Without having any testing laboratories, JKG also provided the COVID-19 test reports.

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