Unipay2u clients awaiting compensation for years

A Dhaka court in January 2019 ordered the government to confiscate some deposits of controversial multilevel marketing company Unipay2u and compensate the victims of the scam, but no step has yet been taken in this regard.

Md Sarwar Morshed, president of Unipay2u Members Club Limited, a group of the company’s clients, told The Business Post Unipay2u had collected money from 7.5 lakh members through more than 150 agents.

He said the number of members and those claiming compensation had surprisingly decreased since the company’s shutdown.

Unipay2u swindled its members out of Tk 1,351.2 crore in a year and a half since 2009, tempting them with a 100% return on investment in 10 months.

The clients then formed Unipay2u Members Club and filed 12 cases in this connection.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) also filed a case with Shahbagh Police Station on January 25, 2011, under the money laundering prevention act.

Dhaka Special Judge’s Court-3 delivered the verdict in the ACC case on January 23, 2019.

In the verdict, the court ordered the government to confiscate Tk 420.14 crore of Unipay2u’s deposits in three banks and use it to compensate the affected clients in a transparent manner by listing them.

Of the amount, Tk 298.72 crore was to be confiscated from BRAC Bank’s Elephant Road branch, Tk 19.93 crore from NCC Bank’s Narayanganj branch, and Tk 101.48 crore from City Bank’s New Market branch in Dhaka.

Sarwar said the members had claimed Tk 300 crore in compensation in total, and the government had confiscated Tk 420 crore.

“Besides, buildings and plots worth about Tk 200 crore bought by the company had already been illegally occupied. The total amount is enough to compensate the victims.”

Unipay2u ran operations by claiming to be the local agent of Malaysian company Best Genius Sdn Bhd.

It deceived the members by claiming that it would use their money to virtually store gold in the US, the UK, and Switzerland.

The company told the members they would be able to invest in those countries online and receive the return in cash or gold.

A Unipay2u Members Club official told The Business Post a big section of the investors comprised those who invested in the capital market at the time, owned black money, and were trying to launder money by investing abroad.

He said this section had not sought compensation from the government.

“That is why the list of compensation seekers is short though Tk 1,351 crore had been transacted via banks,” he added.

In the ACC case, six convicts were sentenced to 12 years in jail each and also fined Tk 2,702 crore.

Of them, the company’s Managing Director Muntasir Hossain and two directors – Jamshed Rahman and Arshad Ullah – are in prison.

The remaining three – Chairman Shahiduzzaman Shahin, Director Masudur Rahman, and Advisor Manzur Ehsan Chowdhury – are fugitives.

The ACC investigation said the convicts, after defrauding the investors of Tk 1,351 crore, had transferred Tk 269 crore by forming a separate company named Uniland and purchasing land property. They laundered the rest of the money.

Of the six convicts, four bought plots in Bashundhara Residential Area in their own names through Uniland, in addition to the six-storey Uni Corner building on Satmasjid Road in Dhanmondi and other property in different places, the members claimed.

They also claimed the company board had bought 42 bighas of land in Narsingdi, plots on the St Martin’s island, 161 decimals of land in Kalatali of Cox’s Bazar, and 20 kathas of land in Amin Bazar. Most of these property had already been illegally occupied, they said.

But the ACC investigation had not found any evidence of these claims.

The members claimed a terrorist had occupied the Uni Corner building and rented it to the University of Development Alternative. The university discontinued the rental agreement and moved out in the face of a financial crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

ACC lawyer Khurshid Alam told The Business Post the court had ordered to compensate the victims from the confiscated fund, but it was difficult to list them as they had been deceived over a decade ago.

“Those who sought compensation from different government offices or have money receipts can be compensated. A list has to be drawn up for that,” he said.

He also said the ACC or the court would not decide who would distribute the compensation.

The government agencies working on compensating Destiny and Jubok clients could do that, he added.