PK Halder’s 7,060 decimal land, land records confiscated

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has seized hundreds of documents on plots, flats and houses from a secret warehouse of Prashant Kumar (PK) Halder, former managing director of International Leasing and Financial Services Limited, who fled to abroad on charges of smuggling several crores of money.

Preliminarily, 7,060 decimals of the land, worth at least Tk1,000 crore, have been identified. The commission found these plots, flats and houses and confiscated those on the directives of the court, multiple sources close to the ACC and court confirmed to The Business Standard.

According to the commission sources, the ACC found the assets while investigating the case filed by the commission against PK Halder on 8 January last year for allegedly acquiring illegal assets worth around Tk275 crore.

While investigating the case, ACC Deputy Director Mohammad Salahuddin, the investigating officer of the case, found a warehouse in Narayanganj's Bhulta. Recently, a team led by Salauddin raided the warehouse and seized the documents.

The team reviewed the land-records and made a list of plots, flats and houses. In the first phase, a 10-storey building in Uttara, two flats in Dhanmondi, 7,080 decimals of land in Narayanganj, Mymensingh and Narsingdi were identified.

Permission was obtained from the Dhaka Special Judge's Court on Thursday afternoon to seize the assets.

Mohammad Salahuddin has already arrested PK Halder's cousin Shankha Bepari, close associate Anindita Baral, tax lawyer Sukumar Mridha and his daughter Anindita Mridha as part of the investigation.

ACC officials think the information about PK Haldar's assets will give a new impetus to the case.

Apart from this case, another team of the commission is looking into the fraud case of Halder. After a long inquiry, the ACC filed five cases against 31 people, including Halder, in the first phase of the International Leasing fraud case on 25 January.

The ACC has said more cases will be filed in its continuation.

Former People's Leasing chairman Ujjwal Kumar Nandi and former ILFSL MD Rashedul Haque have been arrested in the cases.

According to the investigation, PK Halder has amassed at least Tk11,000 crore from various organisations. ACC sources said the amount of money found so far may increase further.

Of this, he has embezzled around Tk3,500 crore from international leasing. In the same tactic, he and his vested interests have embezzled and smuggled about Tk2,200 crore from FAS Finance, Tk2,500 crore from Reliance Finance and about Tk3,000 crore from People's Leasing.

There is a little mortgage against these loans, as a result, the ACC thinks the chances of repaying the loan are uncertain.

Apart from this, the ACC has received information from secret sources that PK Halder has smuggled around thousands of crores of money to Singapore, India and Canada.

PK Halder, who is abroad, applied to the current managing director of ILFSL on 28 June last year to take measures to return to his country.

Although the court allowed it, Halder did not return and an arrest warrant was issued against him through Interpol. The Dhaka Special Judge's Court had earlier ordered the seizure of all PK Haldar's immovable property.