Farmers Bank’s former audit chief, his son among 4 arrested

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) arrested four accused including the Farmers Bank’s former audit committee chairman Mahabubul Haque Chisty on Tuesday in connection with the embezzlement and irregularities in loan disbursement.

The others are - the chairman’s son Rashedul Haque Chisty, the bank’s senior vice president Zia Uddin Ahmed and first vice president Masudur Rahman Khan.

ACC assistant director (public relations) Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya told UNB that the ACC arrested the accused from different areas of the city.

He also said that a case was filed with the Gulshan police station in the morning on embezzlement of Tk 1.60 billion and money laundering.

ACC imposed a travel ban on 17 people including several current and former top officials of the Farmers Bank Limited.

The top Farmers Bank officials facing the ban include the Bank’s former audit committee chairman Mahabubul Haque Chisty, his wife Ruzi Chisty, son Rashedul Haque Chisty, Rashed’s wife Farhana Ahmed, daughter Rimi Chisty, Mazedul Haque Chisty, the bank’s former managing director and CEO AKM Shameem, deputy MD Abdul Motaleb Patwari, senior executive vice-president Gazi Salauddin, executive VP Mohammad Jahangir Alam Majumdar, and SVP Zia Uddin Ahmed.

The other officials are Lutful Haque and Md Monirul Haque, Md Tafazzal Hossain, Mohammad Shamsul Hassan Bhuiyan, Mahbub Ahmed, and Md Zakir Hossain.

The Farmers Bank was established in June 2013 while investigations of Bangladesh Bank found massive irregularities in the bank’s loan disbursement along with a huge amount of default loans in 2017.

The bank’s chairman and a former home minister MK Alamgir and Audit Committee chief Mahabubul resigned following the scandal while the central bank in December last year also removed the bank’s managing director.