Destiny chairman confesses to embezzling Tk 3,350cr

 

Mohammad Rafiqul AminStar

Destiny Group Chairman Mohammad Rafiqul Amin on Thursday confessed to misappropriating a total of Tk 3,350 crore which they colleted from their investors.
In a confessional statement, he also spoke of the role of other top officials, including Destiny-2000 Ltd Chairman Mohammad Hossain, in the embezzlement, said court sources citing a confessional statement made before the Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court.
Meantime, Mohammad Hossain also gave a similar confessional statement to another magistrate.
“Amin has admitted that he in league with Mohammad Hossain and some other top officials embezzled Tk 3,350 crore collected from their investors, said an official of the Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court.
According to the confessional statement, Amin told the magistrate that he and others had collected a total of Tk 3,500 crore from their investors and they had transferred Tk 3,350 crore to their personal accounts without prior approval from the authorities concerned.
Later they had misappropriated all the money they had transferred.
The statements of Amin and Hossain were recorded at the courts of Metropolitan Magisatrate Keshob Roy Chowdhury and Metropolitan Magistrate Shariar Mahmud Adnan respectively.
The two accused had earlier confessed that they were involved with embezzling Tk 1,100 crore from the Destiny Tree Plantation project.
ACC Assistant Director Towfiqul Islam, also the investigation officer of the case, produced them before the courts for recording their statements on completion of their four-day remand.
After recording their statements, the courts sent them to jail.
On July 31, the ACC filed two cases with Kalabagan Police Station against 22 top Destiny officials for laundering Tk 3,285.26 crore of investors’ money.
Destiny Group started its journey in 2000 through its multi-level marketing wing Destiny 2000 with only Tk 12 lakh.
The group set up the Destiny Tree Plantation Ltd in 2009 with a slogan that it operated under Shariah (Islamic laws). It started selling different packages, such as 30 trees at Tk 10,000, which would be worth Tk 60,000 in 12 years. The minimum price for the package was Tk 7,500.
The top officials lured people into the project, saying that they had bought huge tracts of land throughout the country, especially in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.