| MadMax |
Posted
on 17-Aug-02 12:59 PM
MARWARIS ARE A HUGE TIME CROOKS.
"Marwari businessman flees with 150 crore taka bank loan "
(Wednesday the 7th of August 2002 PROTHOM ALO )
A Marwari businessman has fled to India after embezzling money from a
number of private sector banks. There was no information available as
to the exact of money that he embezzled. But five private sector banks
separately gave loans worth 15 million taka (150 crore taka) to a
company owned by this man a few months ago.
The banks are furious after finding that this Marwari businessman has
fled. Already the deputy-managing director and the manager of the
Motijheel branch of one of the banks have been dismissed, according to
responsible sources.
It is learnt that there is a link between the disappearance of this
man and the mysterious murders of two men in the capital’s
Tikatuli are three and a half months ago. The two murdered men were
employees of this businessman. It is thought that the man also
disappeared at around the same time.
According to the information received, the Indian businessman by the
name of Om Prakash Agarwal aka Om Babu took loans of over a hundred
crore taka from five banks. None of the loans, however, were taken
under his name. In one or two cases his name appears in the bank
documents as the holder of the loans. But most of the loans have been
granted to two employees of his company, Swapan Bhattacharya and Radha
Krishna Sharma. Both of them were murdered on the evening of April
14th by armed assailants in Dhaka while they were returning home from
their office in Narayanganj. The investigation into this double murder
did not progress for some mysterious reason. There are rumors that
these murders were committed at the instructions of Om Prakash to
facilitate the embezzlement of the bank loans. It came to be known
that Mr. Agarwal fled soon after the murders were committed. His
offices in Narayanganj remain closed.
The banks became desperate to recover their money after Mr. Agarwal
fled. The five banks are trying hard to try and coordinate the money
loaned. They are maintaining secrecy in this matter. On investigation
it could be found that Om Prakash Agarwal started his business in
Tanbazar, Narayanganj in 1977-78. Tanbazar is Narayangaj’s
biggest wholesale market for chemicals, paint and thread. He used to
supply threads, paint and chemicals imported from India to wholesalers
in Narayanganj. He did not set up an office there and used to commute
daily from Dhaka. Local traders used to get commission for selling Mr.
Agarwal’s goods. When his business was booming he set up two
export oriented garments factories in Tanbazar by the name of East
West Commodities and HB apparels.
In could be known that he embezzled money through the misuse all the
government benefits given to his export oriented company. He used to
sell threads imported through back to back L/C instead of using it in
his factory. He used to get lots of benefits from the government by
overstating export earnings. Mr. Agarwal used to over invoice 10
dollar tee-shirts to 30/35 dollars. Once the BKME stopped his request
of UD to open a back to back L/C after finding out that he showed
$2/kg thread to be $5. The BKME found that the thread was bought from
Uttara Spinning, which is owned by Gidhirlal Modi, a
‘hundi’ businessman based in Kushtia. Besides he is also
the business associate of Ashok Khijirlal of the Doyel Group. It could
be known that Mr. Agarwal was also involved in hundi. He was the
leader of Hong Kong, Dubai and Singapore based hundi syndicates.
|
