Henry
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Bangladesh's anti-graft agency has charged a former army chief and war hero with stealing $400 million from nearly two million investors through alleged Ponzi schemes, police said on Wednesday. The agency accuses retired Lieutenant General Harunur Rashid, the president of Destiny Group, and 21 other senior officials of the group of stealing the money from two projects set up by the direct-selling company between 2006 and this April.
"In total, they embezzled 32.8 billion taka ($402 million)," police inspector Shariful Islam told AFP, quoting from the case records. A Ponzi scheme is an illegal investment scheme that involves paying returns to investors out of money paid in by later investors, rather than from revenues generated by any real business transactions.
The Destiny Group allegedly collected 23.35 billion taka ($286 million) for a tree harvesting project, Islam said. The other project was a credit society in which the Destiny Group collected deposits and said the money would be returned with a substantial rate of interest within a certain number of years. Destiny Group, with nearly 1.7 million investors, had been suspected by authorities of running Ponzi schemes since it was set up in 2000.
The Bangladesh central bank froze the accounts of the company's directors in May after a probe found suspected gross irregularities. General Rashid led Bangladesh's powerful military in the late 1990s. He is also one of the country's most decorated war heroes. None of the accused has been arrested and no court date has been set. The company denied any wrongdoing. "We are going to fight for justice at the court," Destiny Group managing director Mohammad Rafiqul Amin, one of the accused, said.
Bangladesh's army hero charged over $400 million Ponzi scam | Business Recorder
"In total, they embezzled 32.8 billion taka ($402 million)," police inspector Shariful Islam told AFP, quoting from the case records. A Ponzi scheme is an illegal investment scheme that involves paying returns to investors out of money paid in by later investors, rather than from revenues generated by any real business transactions.
The Destiny Group allegedly collected 23.35 billion taka ($286 million) for a tree harvesting project, Islam said. The other project was a credit society in which the Destiny Group collected deposits and said the money would be returned with a substantial rate of interest within a certain number of years. Destiny Group, with nearly 1.7 million investors, had been suspected by authorities of running Ponzi schemes since it was set up in 2000.
The Bangladesh central bank froze the accounts of the company's directors in May after a probe found suspected gross irregularities. General Rashid led Bangladesh's powerful military in the late 1990s. He is also one of the country's most decorated war heroes. None of the accused has been arrested and no court date has been set. The company denied any wrongdoing. "We are going to fight for justice at the court," Destiny Group managing director Mohammad Rafiqul Amin, one of the accused, said.
Bangladesh's army hero charged over $400 million Ponzi scam | Business Recorder
