The Anti-Corruption Commission on Sunday started several inquiries against the Awami League鈥檚 former land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, former finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal鈥檚 family members, and three other lawmakers on charges of corruption.
The commission also started inquiries against former Dhaka metropolitan police commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia and DMP鈥檚 former Detective Branch chief Harun Or Rashid over amassing illegal wealth.
The decisions were taken at a meeting of the commission led by ACC chairman Mohammad Moinuddin Abdullah at its Segun Bagicha headquarters in Dhaka.
The ACC move came two weeks after the fall of the Awami League government, with long-time prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigning and fleeing to India amid a student-led mass uprising.
ACC decided to conduct an inquiry against former DMP commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia over allegations of amassing illegal wealth, including multiple flats, plots, houses, and land.
The commission also opened an inquiry against the former chief of Dhaka鈥檚 Detective Branch of police Harun-or-Rashid, following the recommendations of the ACC鈥檚 intelligence report.
There are allegations against Harun of abusing power, money laundering, and amassing illegal wealth worth crores of taka through various irregularities and corruption, said ACC secretary Khorsheda Yasmeen.
The commission also decided to run an inquiry against former land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Javed over allegations of laundering money in the United Kingdom and amassing illegal wealth.
Javed and his wife have joint ownership of six companies abroad that include real estate businesses, and the property is valued at Tk 2,000 crore.
Apart from this, the ACC initiated an inquiry against former finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal鈥檚 wife Kashmeri Kamal, their daughter Nafisa Kamal, and four other lawmakers over embezzling Tk 20,000 crore through sending workers to Malaysia under a syndicate.
ACC formed a three-member inquiry committee headed by its deputy director, Md Nurul Huda, to carry out probes against them.
The other three members of the syndicate are former lawmakers Lt Gen (retd) Masud Uddin Chowdhury, Nizam Uddin Hazari, and Benazir Ahmed.
ACC secretary Khorsheda Yasmeen said that the syndicate was accused of embezzling Tk 20,000 crores beyond the government-fixed fees for sending workers to Malaysia.
She said over a period of one and a half years, around 450,000 workers were sent through the recruiting agencies owned by the syndicate.
The total trade during this period was estimated at Tk 24,000 crores, with Tk 20,000 crores embezzled as extra charges, said the ACC secretary.
ACC officials said that high-ranking officials from both the Bangladeshi and Malaysian governments were also suspected of being involved in the scam.
The cost per person set by the government to send workers to Malaysia was Tk 79,000, but an average Bangladeshi worker spent Tk 5,44,000 to go to Malaysia.
According to the allegations, former AL lawmaker Nizam Uddin Hazari of Feni-2 got a licence from the recruiting agency 鈥楽nigdha Overseas Limited鈥� in December 2018 to send workers abroad.
The agency sent only 100 workers abroad in three and a half years after getting the licence, but after joining the 鈥楳alaysia syndicate鈥�, the agency sent 8,000 workers in the past one and a half years to Malaysia, and the agency ranked number 4 in the list of agencies that send most workers to Malaysia.
Former Jatiya Party lawmaker Masududdin Chowdhury of Feni-3 established a recruiting agency, Five M International, in 2015. It is now at the top of the list of sending workers to Malaysia. Since its inception, the agency has sent around 2,500 people to the Middle East. But it alone has taken the clearance of 8,592 workers after involving the syndicate.
A former lawmaker of Dhaka-20 Benazir Ahmed鈥檚 company, Ahmed International, has the fifth position in terms of sending workers to Malaysia. Before the opening of the labour market in Malaysia, they sent only 238 workers abroad, but upon entering the syndicate, it ranked in the top list by sending 7,849 workers to Malaysia.
Benazir was president of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies when the syndicate formed to send workers to Malaysia, said ACC officials.
A total of 9,861 people were sent to Malaysia under Orbitals Enterprise and Orbitals International, owned by Kashmiri Kamal, wife of former finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, and his daughter Nafisa Kamal when Kamal was in charge of the finance ministry.
