The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has decided to file a case against Orion Group Chairman Mohammad Obaidul Karim, Managing Director Salman Obaidul Karim, Director Arzuda Karim, and 10 others on allegations of embezzling more than Tk507 crore from Mercantile Bank Limited.
The anti-graft watchdog disclosed the decision in a statement issued on Thursday, saying its inquiry team had found sufficient grounds to proceed with legal action.
In addition to the Orion Group executives, the ACC said the proposed case would also name 10 officials of Mercantile Bank Limited.
They include the bank’s former Deputy Managing Director Gaus-ul-Wara Md Mortaza, Vice President Pratap Kumar Deshmukhya, Senior Vice President and former Managing Director Kamrul Islam Chowdhury, Assistant Vice President Abdul Kader, Credit In-charge Babar Ali Mollah, Vice President Ikramul Islam Khan, Senior Executive Vice President Abdul Halim, and Vice President Atikur Rahman.
According to the ACC, the accused allegedly acted in collusion and with dishonest intent to facilitate the disbursement of loans through criminal misconduct, despite the absence of adequate collateral.
The statement said that in violation of banking laws, two foreign-currency term loans taken from the bank’s Offshore Banking Unit were converted into two local-currency term loans under the Domestic Banking Unit.
It further alleged that new loans were created to repay liabilities of loans that were already subject to classification, and that by extending the loan tenure by seven years, undue benefits were provided to the client.
ACC also said the loans were rescheduled even though the required down payments were not properly made.
According to the commission’s findings, these irregularities resulted in the embezzlement of Tk 507 crore 51 lakh 41 thousand 341 from Mercantile Bank Limited.
The ACC said its inquiry team has now been given formal approval to file a case under Sections 409, 420 and 109 of the Penal Code, along with Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, and Section 4(2) of the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012.
