The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has uncovered three banks through which the transactions for the online casinos operated by Salim Prodhan were carried out.
“The money for the online casino used to deposit at a gateway,” RAB-1 chief Sarwar Bin Kashemtold the media on Tuesday (Oct 1) after carrying out an 18-hour raid at Prodhan’s office and residence.
During the raid, a hoard of foreign currencies, checks worth 80 million taka and illegal liquor were seized.
He said that the money used to be deposited at three banks from the gateway: Commercial Bank of Ceylon, The City Bank and Jamuna Bank.
“The transactions used to be carried out by Salim’s assistant Akhtaruzzaman. A North Korean citizen MrTu was his partner in the online casino business,” he said.
He added that the Korean citizen either came personally to take his own share or the money was sent through Hundi. “There’s money laundering crimes here as well.”
According to RAB Salim went to Japan in 1988 where he had automobile business and then shifted to Thailand for shipyard business where he met his Korean business partner.
“Salim Pradhan opened two gaming sites B-24 and T-21 at the advice of the Korean citizen in 2018,” said Kashem.
He said that RAB found several games in the server they seized and Salim’s website reportedly mentions the casinos.The payments could be made through mobile banking or credit cards.
“If they won the money went into their accounts and if they lost, the money deposited at the organizers’ gateway and then went to the accounts” he said.
He added that they have found deposits as high as Tk 90 million at a gateway in one month.
The RAB official said that their cyber monitoring cell found that corrupt businessmen were involved with online casinos and it’s boss Salim Prodhan was about to leave the country when the crackdown began.
He added that during the raids they seized 84 bottles of liquor, over Tk 2.9 million in cash and foreign currencies worth over Tk 7.7 million during the raids.
“We found 12 passports including the expired ones, 32 cheques of 13 banks,” he said and added that a server, four laptops and two deer hide were also seized.
According to RAB, Salim had close ties with Gias Uddin Mamun, a business partner of BNP acting chief Tarique Rahman.
Kashem said that Salim will be charged under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, Bangladesh Wildlife (Preservation) Act and narcotics act.
Salim was detained from Bangkok-bound Thai Airways flight at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport and taken to RAB office for questioning on Monday (Sept 30).
Later, based on the information gleaned from Salim, RAB raided his house and office in Gulshan 2.
He is the chairman of a business conglomerate named 'Pradhan Group'. A company called P24 Gaming operates under the umbrella of the group and refers to itself on its website as "one of the first providers of B2B Live Casino solutions in Bangladesh."
