Graft probe report against Shakib, 14 others postponed to May 20

Bangla Press Desk:   A Dhaka court on Tuesday set 20 May for submitting the probe report in a graft case against former lawmaker and cricketer Shakib Al Hasan and 14 others over the alleged stock-market manipulation, illegal transactions and money laundering. 

Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge Sabbir Faiz set the new date as the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) failed to submit the report on the scheduled date.The other accused in the case are-- Shakib’s mother Shirin Akhter, Department of Cooperatives Deputy Registrar Abul Khair Hiru, his wife Kazi Sadia Hasan, Abul Kalam Madbar, Kanika Afroz, Mohammad Bashar, Sazed Madbar, Aleya Begum, Kazi Fuad Hasan, Kazi Farid Hasan, Javed A Matin, Zahed Kamal, Humayun Kabir and Tanvir Nizam.

On 17 May this year, ACC Assistant Director Sajjad Hossain filed the case on charges of embezzling around Tk257 crore from the stock market. On 16 June, the court imposed a travel ban on Shakib.

According to the case statement, the accused operated multiple beneficiary owners’ (BO) accounts and engaged in unethical and illegal speculative trades, manipulative transactions and continuous fraudulent dealings.

They allegedly formed an organised syndicate to artificially inflate the prices of certain shares through repeated buying and selling, luring general investors into these manipulated stocks. As a result, investors suffered major financial losses amounting to Tk256.97 crore, which was allegedly embezzled.

The statement further alleges that Abul Khair Hiru laundered Tk29.94 crore from stock market proceeds with the help of his wife, transferring the money through various channels. Investigators also detected suspicious transactions amounting to Tk542.31 crore in his 17 bank accounts.

Shakib Al Hasan allegedly invested in shares of Paramount Insurance Ltd, Crystal Insurance Ltd and Sonali Papers Ltd- companies manipulated by Hiru.

Shakib was reportedly involved in market manipulation and induced general investors to buy artificially inflated shares and allegedly withdrew Tk2.95 crore from the stock market, which the ACC claims was illicit.Source: daily Sun

BP/SP