Freeze 125 bank accounts of S Alam Group owner and family, court orders

A Dhaka court today ordered frozen 125 bank accounts of S Alam Group owner Mohammed Saiful Alam, his wife Farzana Parveen and nine members of his family at different branches of First Security Islami Bank PLC in Chattogram and Dhaka.

Saiful Alam and the others deposited Tk 22,65,49,191 at different branches in Chattogram's Agrabad, Patiya, Jubilee Road and Dhaka's Dilkusha, Kakrail and Gulshan.

The other members are Saiful Alam's brothers Mohammad Abudullah Hasan, Osman Goni, Abdus Samad, Rashedul Alam, Shahidul Alam, Osman's wife Farzana Begum, Shahidul's wife Miskat Ahmed and Samad's wife Shahana Ferdous.

Judge (Vacation) Mohammad Ibrahim Mia of the Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge's Court passed the order after Anti-Corruption Commission Deputy Director Md Abu Sayeed, who is the head of the enquiry team, submitted an application in this regard.

ACC Public Prosecutor Mir Ahmed Ali Salam moved the application on behalf of the anti-graft body.

In the application, the ACC official said that during the enquiry into the allegations brought against S Alam and their family members of laundering $1 billion to Singapore, Cyprus, British Virgin Islands and other countries, they found information of Tk 22,65,45,191 deposited at 125 accounts of S Alam and their family members.

The application also said the bank accounts of S Alam and others need to be frozen so that they can not withdraw those money from the accounts and launder.

The judge also ordered the ACC to send order sheets to the managers of those branches for the next course of action.

Earlier on October 7, the same court issued a travel ban on S Alam, his wife Farzana Parveen and 11 members of his family in connection with allegations of laundering $1 billion to Singapore and several other countries.

The ACC official, in the application, said that The Daily Star published a report headlined "S Alam's Aladdin's lamp" on August 4 last year, bringing allegations of laundering $1 billion to Singapore and several other countries.

Following the report published on August 4 last year, the HC had on August 6 issued a suo-moto rule directing an investigation into allegations that S Alam Group owner Mohammed Saiful Alam and his wife are running offshore businesses without Bangladesh Bank's permission.