Judge Sheikh Nazmul Alam of Dhaka Special Judge's Court-4 has sentenced 46 persons, including Destiny Group’s, a controversial multi-layered marketing company (MLM), managing director Rafiqul Amin and former army chief and president of Destiny Harun-ur-Rashid, to different terms in a case filed on the allegations of money laundering and embezzlement.
Rafiqul Amin has been sentenced to 12 years in prison with a fine of Tk 2 billion. And the former army chief has been sentenced to four years in prison with a fine of Tk 35 million. The remaining of the accused have been sentenced to five to nine years in prison with fines. We appreciate this verdict.
Notably, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed two cases against Destiny Co-operative Society on the allegations of embezzlement and laundering more than Tk 18.61 billion. All the accused in these cases have been sentenced to different terms.
According to a report of Prothom Alo, Destiny Group had collected a total of Tk 400 billion from people in the name of MLM business. However, the clients of Destiny Group have not received any refund as yet.
Many in the ruling party tried to protect Destiny's incumbents. A former MP also promised to sell the trees and return the money. But in the end he could not. At the time, the Appellate Division had stipulated that Rafiqul Amin, MD of Destiny Group, and Mohammad Hossain, chairman of Destiny 2000, would be granted bail if they sold 3.5 million trees within six weeks and paid Tk 28 billion or Tk 25 billion in cash to the government. However, they even have failed to meet that condition.
According to a report by the Bangladesh Bank, the top officials of Destiny have purchased huge amounts of assets in their own name as well as so-called organisations, including jute mills, cold storages, television channels and crop lands as well as houses, cars and movie theatres.
The court also directed the government to form a six-member committee headed by a former judge of the Supreme Court regarding returning the money to the affected clients of Destiny Co-operative Society in the verdict.
The ACC lawyers say Destiny’s assets worth Tk 5.6 billion have been seized. Apart from that, some money could be returned to the affected clients from the fines imposed on the accused. However, if the accused appeal to the High Court no money can be recovered until the appeal is disposed of.
According to the law, the defendants can go to the High Court. But if the purpose of going to the High Court is to prolong the proceeding and try not to pay the dues of the customers, it cannot be accepted in any way. We hope that the government will set up a high-level committee as per the direction of the court to return the money of the customers as soon as possible.