Court orders travel ban on Evaly chair, MD

Staff Correspondent

A Dhaka court has barred e-commerce platform Evaly’s managing director Mohammad Rassel and his wife Shamima Nasrin, the company’s chairman, from travelling abroad amid an ongoing investigation into embezzlement charges against them.

Dhaka Senior Special Judge KM Imrul Kayes issued the order on Saturday responding to a petition by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).

The ACC officials on July 8 sent a letter to the Special Branch of police to instruct immigration police to impose a travel ban against Rassel and Shamima over alleged embezzlement of Tk 338 crore.

Evaly offices remain closed since the ACC began investigation into the charges. Customers claimed no one was answering the hotlines.

The commission on July 8 formed a two-member probe panel after receiving a Bangladesh Bank report, which says Evaly accepted Tk 214 crore in advance payment from customers and owed the merchants an additional Tk 190 crore. This totalled Tk 404 crore to be in Evaly’s possession, but this non-investing e-commerce company has only Tk 65.18 worth of assets.

The ACC says Evaly allegedly embezzled around Tk 338 crore.

The central bank also expressed concern about the amount of Evaly’s liability to customers and merchants is likely to be higher as the company authorities did not allow the inspection team access their replica database.

Evaly offers consumers all sorts of lucrative deals, with ‘cash back’ offers going up to 100 to 150 per cent. Thousands of consumers were lured in by these offers. Few even made profits, while most are still waiting to see the big bucks.