Home ›› 08 Jun 2022 ›› Front
The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in India has found wealth worth Tk 300 crore that belongs to NRB Global Bank’s former managing director Prashanta Kumar Halder and his accomplices.
The economic intelligence agency’s investigation has revealed 88 bank accounts of Halder, better known as PK Halder, and his associates in India.
It has also found seven luxurious flats and 40 properties in Malaysia, according to Bangladeshi and Indian media reports.
Halder, the mastermind of a Tk 10,000 crore banking scam in Bangladesh, was produced before a special judge court in Kolkata on Tuesday where the ED revealed his wealth information.
He admitted in the court that he lived in the country posing as an Indian national named Shibshankar Halder.
The ED also told the court it had found 44 movable and immovable assets belonging to Halder and his associates in different parts of India.
Halder has 44 bank accounts with deposits of about Tk 60 crore in India.
ED lawyer Arijit Chakraborty told the court Halder had laundered a huge amount of money from Bangladesh to several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and Spain.
The court remanded Halder and five others for 14 more days in judicial custody in a money laundering case. Earlier in the day, the ED produced them before the court on completion of their 11-day remand amid tight security.
Since the arrests of Halder and his associates, the ED has interrogated them for 24 days during remand in three phases.
Halder, who fled Bangladesh in 2019, was arrested by the ED along with five other Bangladeshis in Ashoknagar of West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district following a request by the Bangladesh government.
He acquired real estate properties in West Bengal by posing as an Indian citizen. The ED said Halder and his associates had fraudulently obtained various official documents, including West Bengal’s ration cards, Indian voter IDs, and PAN and Aaadhaar cards.
After Halder’s arrest, Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen said he had been arrested on the basis of specific information from the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Momen said he had discussed the matter of Halder with the Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh and India had given assurance of all-out cooperation in this regard.
After the meeting with Momen, Indian High Commissioner Vikram Doraiswami said it might take time to hand Halder over to Bangladesh and legal procedures would be followed in this regard.
Bangladesh is trying to bring Halder back under the bilateral extradition treaty signed in 2016.
