Three companies, including two shrimp exporters, are accused of illegally taking money from a government-owned bank named Rupali Bank. These companies are Priam Fish Export Limited, Bionic Sea Food Export Limited, and SM Corporation.
The first two companies are based in Khulna and active members of the Bangladesh Frozen Food Exporters Association (BFFEA). SM Corporation’s whereabouts are unknown.
What these shrimp exporters did was, they created made-up documents that claimed they were exporting shrimp but didn’t actually export any shrimp. They then provide these documents to Rupali Bank and got about US $15 million. They also took around US $4 million from the government as export subsidy for their fabricated exports. So, in total, they got about US $19 million through these fake documents. This is just what known so far; there could be more money involved.
This happened at Sir Iqbal road or Sham’s building branch of Rupali Bank in Khulna. The Bangladesh Bank, which oversees banks in Bangladesh, and Rupali Bank’s own internal team are now investigating this to find out what exactly happened and who it. Both initial reports from these teams confirm that a fraud occurred.
Two employees of Rupali Bank, the former manager, and deputy general manager (DGM) Zakir Ibn Borak, and senior principal officer Murad Hossain, have already been suspended because of this.
Bilkish Ara, the current manager of Rupali Bank’s Sir Iqbal road branch Khulna, said that the head office’s audit team is looking into this matter. She didn’t want to talk to the news media and suggested talking to the head office for more information.
When asked about this recently, the Managing Director of Rupali Bank, Mohammad Jahangir, said, “These companies have been our customers for a long time, and they’ve even received government awards. We are trying to get back the money they took and some amount has been recovered.”
The bank had been lenient with them because of the ongoing dollar shortage in recent years. Shrimp exporters in Bangladesh don’t need to buy raw materials from abroad, so all the money they earn from exporting shrimp helps increase the country’s supply of dollars.
In many cases, these shrimp exporting companies sell their export bills to their banks to get quick cash since it takes time for the money to appear in their accounts. Banks charge fees and commissions for this service. The banks did this to support the companies, thinking it would boost the country’s export income and bring in more dollars. However, these companies misused this opportunity.
Priam Fish Export Ltd‘s factory is in Char Rupsa, Bagmara, Khulna, and it’s managing director is Abdul Quader. Bionic Sea Food’s office is on KDA Avenue in Khulna, and its managing director is Siddiqur Rahman.
