Prasanta Kumar Halder alias PK Halder, who had been absconding after being charged for amassing illegal wealth, embezzling thousand crore taka and laundering those abroad, was arrested in West Bengal of India on Saturday.
The country's Enforcement Directorate (ED) apprehended six people, including Halder, who was staying at a house in Ashok Nagar of the Indian state, reports BSS.
Earlier on Friday, the ED raided more than 10 locations in North and South 24 Parganas of West Bengal to detain Halder and his two associates — Pritish Kumar Halder and Pranesh Kumar Halder, reports Hindustan Times.
All of them fraudulently obtained Indian citizenship papers, the ED said in a statement.
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PK Halder has been living in West Bengal posing as an Indian citizen. He used the name Shibshankar Halder after procuring a ration card issued by the West Bengal government, Indian voter ID card as well as PAN and Aadhar card, the ED said.
His associates also managed to get similar documents, the agency found during the investigation.
ED officials found that Halder and his associates set up companies in India on the basis of these documents and also purchased immovable property at various places, including Kolkata.
Seeking anonymity, an ED official said that the money siphoned from Bangladesh (by the suspects) was used for buying a huge quantity of land and property in West Bengal and Kolkata.
“The money was taken as loan from various banks by companies that only exist on paper. Realising that they had been cheated, the banks informed the financial intelligence unit of the Bangladesh police that subsequently approached the Indian government,” the officer added.
READ READ: Arrest warrant issued against PK Halder, 9 others
On January 8, 2020, Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) started a case against PK Halder, a former managing director of the erstwhile NRB Global Bank, now Global Islami Bank, and Reliance Finance Limited, for amassing illegal wealth of around Tk 275 crore and laundering the money abroad.
The alleged swindler along with his associates is facing a number of cases in the country for misappropriating and siphoning off money through fake companies.
Officials at the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) said a total of 22 cases were filed against Halder and his associates over the embezzlement of Tk 2,500 crore from the International Leasing and Financial Services Limited (ILFSL).
Besides, 13 cases were also filed against Halder and his aides for misappropriation of money from another non-banking financial institution — FAS Finance and Investment Ltd.
So far, ACC has frozen assets worth around Tk 1,000 crore.
In March this year, a Dhaka court issued arrest warrants against 10, including Halder, in one of the cases filed against them.
The court also issued arrest warrants against PK Halder's mother Lilaboti Halder, Purnima Rani Halder, Uttam Kumar Mistri, Amitabh Adhikari, Pritish Kumar Halder, Rajib Shom, Subrata Das, Anang Mohan Roy, and Swapan Kumar Mistri.
