Duped Tamha Securities investors want to get money back 

Mojibur Rhamn, a retired government officer, invested around Tk 13 lakh in the stock market through Tamha Securities in 2007.

Later in a morning, he came to know that he had no shares left in the BO account he opened through Tamha Securities, which is licensed with the Dhaka Stock Exchange and stock market regulator Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC).

He was puzzled how this had happened as he did not sell shares. But it happened, and now he is knocking door to door to get his money back.

It was not only Mojibur Rhamn who fell victim to Tamha Securities’ fraud. The company committed such frauds with around 300 of its BO account holders and pocketed more than Tk 87 crore.

On December 9, 2021, the DSE suspended the trading operation of Tamha Securities on allegations of embezzling around Tk 87 crore of investors’ money.

Now, affected stock investors in the securities house are demanding their money back as soon as possible.

On behalf of around 200 affected investors, Fakhrul Islam placed the demand at a press briefing at the Capital Market Journalists' Forum Auditorium in the capital on Wednesday.

About 50 affected investors attended the press conference.

Fakhrul Islam alleged Tamha Securities embezzled the investors’ money due to the absence of strict monitoring on the part of the BSEC and the DSE.

"We have invested our hard-earned money here. But now we have lost everything, "he said.

The investors alleged that Harunur Rashid, owner of Tamha Securities, and his two sisters, sold shares of its clients using duplicate software due to a lack of strict monitoring.

He said the brokerage firm illegally used two back-office accounting software procedures—one for the regulator and stakeholders, and the other for its clients, to provide misleading information.

Under these circumstances, investors do not have any way to know the true facts and are thus deceived by their brokerage firm.

Fakhrul Islam said if the regulatory bodies had been monitored strictly, such fraud would not have taken place.

"After the suspension of share transactions, we immediately contacted the Central Depository Bangladesh Ltd and found that we did not have any shares," he alleged.

Fakhrul Islam said the Tamha Securities authorities changed the mobile numbers of more than 200 clients without informing them.

Using duplicate software, Tamha Securities used to send us share and sale information via SMS and mail. Because of this, they did not understand their fraud.

"Save us, save the capital market. Otherwise, investors will lose their confidence in the stock market. Even if there is no security of money, people will not invest here," he said.

A BSEC investigation committee discovered that the stock brokerage firm illegally used two back-office accounting software procedures—one for the regulator and stakeholders and the other for its clients—to provide misleading information.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) had frozen the bank acc