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By-Matiar Chowdhury:
NRB Commercial (NRBC) Bank has repeatedly made headlines for money laundering, loan disbursement irregularities, cost overruns and recruitment irregularities. Recently, Bangladesh’s top English newspaper Daily Star published a news titled “Guns in the Boardroom” in their investigative report . As soon as the report was published, it went viral worldwide on Facebook-Twitter and WhatsApp. Allegations of irregularities and money laundering have been made against not only NRBCE but also several other public and private banks of the country. Especially expatriate investors are in danger by investing in these bank insurances.
After investing in a financial institution in Bangladesh, a few UK expatriates had to be disgraced. They were victims of the conspiracy of the local managers of that institution and had to go to the country to live under false pretenses. The matter has not yet been settled in court. Several banks are on the verge of bankruptcy due to unscrupulous directors and trustees. Our topic of discussion today is Daily Star’s investigation report on NRBC Bank.
Armed in the boardroom of NRBC Bank:
The Non-Resident Bangladeshi Commercial (NRBC) Bank is often in the news for allegations of money laundering, loan irregularities, overspending and recruitment irregularities. Bangladesh Bank had to intervene in the dissolution of the bank’s board of directors in 2017 and the removal of the then managing director Dewan Mujibur Rahman in 2017 due to a Tk 700 crore loan scam. The then chairman Farasat Ali had to resign from the board. Mujib and Farasat were banned by Bangladesh Bank from directorships for two years and the board was subsequently reconstituted.
But the chairmanship of the new board has been given to a person against whom allegations of irregularities have been raised and the irregularities are still continuing in the bank. Analyzing hundreds of pages of the bank’s meeting minutes and internal investigation reports, bank statements, Bangladesh Bank reports and Supreme Court documents over the past six months, The Daily Star has highlighted numerous internal irregularities in the bank, even incidents of intimidation with weapons.
The first part of the four-part reporting series details the loan scam and the gun-toting boardroom incident. The 40th meeting of the Board of Directors of NRB Commercial Bank was held on February 7, 2016. A man with a sub-machine gun entered the meeting along with the bank’s current chairman Parvez Tamal and director Adnan Imam. Tamal and Adnan were then members of the board of directors. According to the document, the gunman was staying in that room until Abu Bakar Chowdhury, another member of the board of directors, asked him to leave.
Earlier, on December 20, 2015, in the 39th meeting of the board of directors, Parvez and alternate director Abu Mohammad Saidur Rahman insulted the then board chairman Farasat Ali. At that time, an internal investigation was going on in the board against some members of the board of directors of embezzlement of Tk 64 crore and attempted embezzlement of Tk 165 crore. The complaint was leveled against three directors — Parvez, Adnan and Rafiqul Islam Mia Arzu. Among them, Rafiqul is the current vice chairman of the bank. Another sponsor shareholder A.M. Also against Tushar Iqbal Rahman.
At that time there were 18 members on the board. The board was also investigating against Saidur Rahman and AKM Mostafizur Rahman, alternate directors of the board of directors. Saidur Rahman’s son is A.M. Tushar Iqbal Rahman. Five of them are currently board members of the bank. Over the past six months, The Daily Star has seen the bank’s meeting minutes and internal investigation reports as well as Supreme Court documents. These show how the six conspired to take benami loans in the name of themselves or their friends and family with associated institutions and their business interests.
All six, including Parvez and Adnan, have denied all charges against them and claimed that they were framed as part of a conspiracy. Disgruntled with the bank’s investigation into allegations of financial fraud, Parvez and Adnan came up with the submachine gun to ‘instill fear among board officials’. Parvez Tamal was unanimously elected chairman of the board of directors of the bank on December 10, 2017, within two years of this incident of entering the board meeting with a gun. Since then he has remained in this position till now.
Behind the entrance to the boardroom with a submachine gun:
The minutes of the 48th meeting of the board of directors held on 7 December 2016 said that Parvez and Adnan entered with submachine guns to ‘instill fear among board officials’, displeased with the bank’s investigation into allegations of financial fraud. It further stated that the purpose of creating violence and show of arms was to establish dominance over the board to hide benami loans and benami contracts and other misdeeds of the accused directors and their associates.
Pervez has denied all the allegations leveled against him and has said that the weapon was licensed by him and the stranger was his bodyguard. On December 10, 2017, Parvez Tamal was unanimously elected as the chairman of the board of directors of the bank on December 10, 2017, two years after the incident.
He has been in this position since then. At the same time, the Board of Directors nominated Rafiqul as the Vice Chairman and Adnan as the Chairman of the Executive Committee. According to the minutes of the 56th board meeting, the Internal Inquiry Committee report against them was quashed that year. According to NRBC Bank and Russia’s Corporate Registry website, Parvez, a resident of Barisal, was expatriate and involved in business related to ‘IT distribution, real estate holding and logistics consultancy’ in Russia.
Documents obtained by the Daily Star show that since being elected as the board chairman, Parvez has been accused of benami loans, illegal profiteering, breach of banking regulations and financial fraud. Since he took over, Lanta Services has been given billions of rupees in loans.
Established in 2013, one of the founding sponsors of the bank is director Parvez. In 2016, the capital of the sponsor directors of NRBC Bank was Tk 520 crore. Of this, the share capital of Parvez Tk 20 crore, Tushar Tk 20 crore, Feroze Tk 20 crore, Rafiqul Tk 20 crore and Adnan Tk 10 crore, according to bank documents.
According to the minutes of the 48th meeting of the board of directors, Parvez, Adnan, Rafiqul, Tushar and Feroz took anonymous loans of Tk 64 crore in the name of Pubali Construction, NES Trading, an NGO called Voluntary Organization for Social Development (VOSD), Lanta Services and Ornita Agro. This loan was taken without disclosing the information about the association of the directors with these institutions.
Who stole what amount?
In February 2016, the bank set up a committee and began investigating several allegations, including money laundering, against five directors and others. According to the minutes of the 48th meeting of the board of directors, Parvez, Adnan, Rafiqul, Tushar and Feroz took anonymous loans of Tk 64 crore in the name of Pubali Construction, NES Trading, an NGO called Voluntary Organization for Social Development (VOSD), Lanta Services and Ornita Agro.
This loan was taken without disclosing the information about the association of the directors with these institutions. In banking parlance, these are called ‘related party loans’ and as per Bangladesh Bank rules, in the case of such loans, the directors of the lending bank must declare their relationship with the borrower company. Out of this Tk 64 crore loan, Adnan alone owed NES Trading (19 crore) and Pubali Construction. (nine crores) took two ‘benami loans’ of Rs.28 crores.
According to the minutes of the 46th and 48th board meetings, he along with Mustafizur, Tushar and Feroze took a loan of three crore rupees in the name of Arnita Agro. The internal investigation of the bank showed that Arnita Agro is owned by Adnan and Mostafizur and the loan of three crore rupees was transferred to IPE Capital within two days. is transferred.
IPE Capital is Adnan Imam’s family business and he is a director of the firm, according to joint stock company documents. NRBC Bank’s website lists Adnan as a UK national and commercially important person (CIP) with various businesses in London and Dhaka, including real estate and private equity. According to the bank’s internal investigation report, NES Trading is owned by Adnan and his business partner and brother-in-law, who lives in London.
According to Adnan’s confession before the investigation committee, Pubali Construction is owned by one of his employees and a loan of Tk 9 crore was taken for Pubali Construction against Adnan’s father-in-law’s land. According to the investigation report, Parvez is also associated with Pubali Construction. He transferred at least Tk 87 lakh in two installments to Pubali Construction’s account before the investigation began.
On August 5, 2016, the then Governor of Bangladesh Bank, Fazle Kabir, in a letter written to the then Finance Minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhit, said that Bangladesh Bank’s secret investigation has revealed that Adnan Ornita had taken a “Benami” loan of Tk 3 crore using the name of Agro Industries. 44-48 of the bank’s board of directors. The minutes of the meeting said that the board members observed with deep concern that despite being the chairman of the audit committee, Rafiqul failed to stop Adnan from embezzling depositors’ money. In the 44th meeting of the board of directors, the board members said that Adnan, through his company Adrita Trading, was involved in the internal workings of the Banani branch of NRBC Bank. He has submitted a bill of Tk 1 crore against the actual expenditure of Tk 56 lakh, where his fraud is clear. Mostafizur is the current director of the bank, the founder of NGO VSDO, which took a loan of Tk 30 crore.
According to the minutes of several board meetings, the current chairman Parvez took a benami loan of Tk 3 crore in the name of Lanta Services. On the day Lanta was given a loan facility of Tk 3 crore, Parvez transferred Tk 1 crore from his own account as a lien to Lanta’s bank account in the form of FDR. Bank concerned Saying, Parvez deposited the money to facilitate loan distribution in favor of Lanta Services.
From the boardroom to the court:
In view of these complaints, when Parvez, Adnan and Rafiqul were removed from the board in April 2016, they approached the court regarding the matter. Justice Md. The High Court bench led by Rezaul Hasan reinstated the three but temporarily attached their shares to the bank. At the same time, the court also ordered to keep them out of the board meetings in which the complaints raised against them will be discussed. According to the banking law, the board does not have the jurisdiction to dismiss the three people – based on this, the court decided to reinstate them.
“However, that does not mean that the bank or the board of directors cannot take appropriate action as per law.” The court said in the judgment that the petitioners (accused directors) had created a loophole to take benami loans. According to the judgment, in the board’s investigation report Pubali Construction and NES Trading Adnan Imam’s connivance with the loans and his involvement in these institutions have been proved. The bench further said that prima facie evidence of Parvez and Rafiqul’s association with Lanta has been found and Parvez’s association with Pubali Construction and NES Trading is visible and thereby proves that the petitioner is the bank. took benami loans from and is the man behind those two companies.
In just two months, Lantar’s loan limit was increased by two crores to six and a half crores. On April 18, 2020, the loan limit was increased to Tk 9.5 crore. At the end of the next three meetings, Lanta got another 50 lakh rupees ‘incentive loan’. In 2021, Lanta’s credit limit of 9.5 crore rupees was renewed. The documents show that in just two years, three loans of Tk 4.28 million were given to the company for cars.
Love for Lanta Services :
Three years after these findings of the bank’s board of directors and the judgment of the appeals department, NRBC Bank gave a loan of at least 14 crore rupees to Lanta Services. It is known from the minutes of several meetings. On February 19, 2019, the meeting of the board of directors led by Parvez gave an integrated loan facility of four and a half crore rupees to Lanta.
The minutes of the meeting show that there was no discussion about the investigation against Parvez regarding his association with Lantar and the instructions given by the High Court to the bank to take action against him for taking anonymous loans. Within two months, Lantar’s loan limit was increased by two crores to six and a half crores. On April 18, 2020, the loan limit was increased to Tk 9.5 crore.
At the end of the next three meetings, Lanta got another 50 lakh rupees ‘incentive loan’. In 2021, Lanta’s loan limit of 9.5 million rupees was renewed. The documents show that the company has been given three loans of 4.28 million rupees for cars in just two years. After Pervez became the chairman of the board of directors, Lanta Services’ subsidiary company, Lanta Fortuna Properties, received 87 million in June 2019. Received the bank’s interior design work several times with monetary contracts. Faisal bin Alam, managing director of both institutions, is a customer of the bank.
Provident fund theft:
Through these two institutions, money has also been siphoned off from the provident fund of NRBC Bank’s Junior Tellers and Assistant Tellers. The recruitment was done through a different entity called NRBC Management. NRBC Management, founded in 2018, was owned by Parvez, Adnan, Rafiqul and Mostafizur, among others, till June 2022, the documents show.
The bank account statements of NRBC Management’s Provident Fund, Lanta Services and NRBC Management show how Lanta Services used the Provident Fund’s bank account as a conduit at various times. The money went from the bank’s junior officers’ provident fund to NRBC Management’s account and then to Lanta Services.
Basically, it is alleged that the money was transferred using the bank account of NRBC management to hide where it was going. For example, on April 26, 2021, one crore rupees was transferred from the provident fund account to the account of NRBC management. On the same day, 60 lakh rupees were transferred from the provident fund account to Lanta Services. After about a year and a half, in October 2022, NRBC management returned 1 crore rupees to the provident fund account. Lanta Services has returned Rs.
It may be that someone I know personally has an account here. I was not the chairman of the bank when the overdraft facility was granted. So I had no interference in who got the loan. The allegations leveled against me are false, concocted and made to defame me personally and to mislead the authorities.
Denial of allegation:
Parvez has denied all claims that the documents in possession of The Daily Star are fake or fabricated. In an interview at Motijheel’s office, Pervez justified taking the gunman into the boardroom, saying that the firearm was licensed by him and was actually exaggerating the incident. He said, ‘He (the gunman) took me naturally into the boardroom… I was threatened by the board, even though I made a written request. I also sought security from RAB.
However, during the proceedings, the High Court reprimanded Parvez for the gun issue, saying, “No personal gunman or bodyguard should be allowed inside the bank.” Parvez also denied giving loan facility to Lanta Services. Someone has an account here. I was not the chairman of the bank when the overdraft facility was granted. So I had no interference in who got the loan.
Adnan Imam denied having any association with Pubali Construction, Ornitta Agro or NES Trading. He said, “The allegations are false, fabricated and made to defame me personally and to mislead the authorities.” Both Parvez and Tamal said they were false. The judgment of the High Court was based on the documents.
Adnan said, ‘The High Court’s verdict has mentioned the report prepared by the then chairman and his associates to implicate me and other current directors of the bank. The reference in the judgment was not investigative or observational, rather it contained a direct reference to the so-called inquiry report. Simply put, the judge just read out the allegations against me from the false report made by the former chairman.
It is not an opinion of the judge. However, the High Court’s verdict said that they agree with the investigation report of NRBC Bank. Because in the investigation process of the committee, ‘no patent or latent irregularity or invalidity or lack of acceptance evidence was found’. When the High Court judgment was mentioned, Parvez said, ‘The Appellate Division overturned the judgment…. It is a matter of law and whoever is in charge can provide the information as he likes.’But the Appellate Division did not overturn the entire judgment of the High Court Division.
The Appellate Division only annulled the part of the verdict which temporarily seized the shares of Parvez and others. Mostafizur Rahman said that VOSD NGO established by him is a non-profit organization and according to the rules of Bangladesh Bank, the loan has been taken for that organization. Director of Bangladesh Policy Research Institute Ahsan H. Mansoor. Said these are ‘related party’ loans.
He said, “When such loans are sanctioned, they should have declared their relationship with the borrowing institution.” Tushar Iqbal was called and messaged for comment, but he did not respond. Saidur Rahman denied the allegations of insulting the former board chairman. He said, ‘They were pushing for a loan for a company that did not have the proper capacity to take the loan.
Both Parvez and I demanded accountability for how our premiums were spent. Mazbaul said, “We have not heard any complaint about the chairman (Parvez) going to the boardroom with someone with a gun.” If we had evidence, we could have verified the allegation.’
Caption: Picture Included
(Matiar Chowdhury London 22nd March 2024.)
