The National Board of Revenue (NBR) Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) have summoned the banking documents of two former public works division engineers accused of facilitating tender manipulation for alleged tender kingpin GK Shamim.
On Tuesday (Spet 24), NBR wrote to the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) asking for the transaction records of former engineer Mohammad Rafiqul Islam and additional engineer Abdul Hai.
There are allegations that the two accused public servants received hefty amount of bribes from Shamim to facilitate tender related extortion and manipulation.
Rafiqul Islam allegedly received Tk 11 billion and Abdul Hai Tk 4 billion over a period of years. Both of them have been in hiding since Rapid Action Battalion arrested Shamim.
Shamim’s influence in the public works division reportedly didn’t change although Rafiqul retired in December last year.
Previously on Monday (Sept 23), the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) moved to scan the bank accounts of Bhola-3 lawmaker Nurunnabi Chowdhury Shaon and Dhaka South City Jubo League President Ismail Chowdhury Samrat.
On Sunday (Sept 22) BFIU also asked all banks to freeze the bank accounts of GK Shamim and Khaled Mahmud Bhuiyan following their arrests on money laundering charges.
On Sept 21, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) raided GK Shamim's Niketon residence and arrested him with Tk 18 million in cash, over Tk 1.65 billion worth of fixed deposit receipts (FDR), alcohol and firearms.
Later, three cases were filed against Shamim for illegal possession of narcotics and firearms and money laundering charges.
On Sept 18, the RAB arrested Khaled on charges of running a casino at the Young Men’s Club in Dhaka’s Fakirapool area from his Gulshan residence and seized a large cache of foreign currencies and illegal weapons from his residence.
The same day, RAB raided on the Fakerapool club, detained more than 140 people and seized huge quantity of alcohol, gambling equipment and Tk 22.9 million.
The RAB filed three cases against Khalid under the drug laws, the Arms Act, and the Money Laundering Act.
Shamim was the central cooperative secretary of Jubo League and Khaled was the organizing secretary of Dhaka South Jubo League until the ruling Awami League's youth front expelled the duo following their arrest.