PK Halder placed on three-day remand
Prashanta Kumar Halder (PK Halder), an infamous name in Bangladesh's finance sector, has been placed on a three-day remand after being arrested in West Bengal of India.
India’s central intelligence agency Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested him from North 24 Parganas in West Bengal on Saturday. Later, they appealed to court for his remand and it was approved.
ED appealed to put PK Halder on remand, late at night on Saturday. The court approved the appeal on Sunday morning. Among five of PK Halder’s accomplices, four has been put on a three-day remand. The only woman accomplice is in ED custody.
Earlier, ED found traces of various property including mansions of PK Halder at different places of the state. Recently, the agency conducted raids on at least ten places over the last two days in search of PK Halder’s and his associates’ assets.
ED is mainly investigating money laundering, smuggling cash illegally into India, siphoning off funds abroad and accumulating illegal property. However, the total information on houses, land and business companies could not be confirmed till Saturday night.
Former managing director (MD) of NRB Global Bank and Reliance Finance Limited, PK Halder is one of the top scamsters and defaulters of Bangladesh’s financial sector. From Bangladesh, he fled to India in 2019 and later moved to Canada.
According to various Indian intelligence sources, ED has arrested PK Halder along with five of his accomplices on allegations of illegal entry and residing in India, purchase of properties under false identity and illegal transfer of funds from Bangladesh to India.
Special attention is being placed on money laundering act of 2002. However, it could not be confirmed whether his brother Pranesh Kumar Halder, who managed his business in West Bengal was among the arrested or not.
ED says, PK Halder identifying himself as Shivshankar Halder somehow collected various government identification cards of India such as West Bengal ration card, voter ID, income tax office’s identity card PAN, citizenship ID, Adhaar card etc. ED mentioned that PK Halder’s associates also had done the same.
ED said in a statement on Saturday, PK Halder and his accomplices had opened several business companies with those ID cards in India, in West Bengal especially. They bought property at different places. They even have numerous mansions in some upmarket areas of Kolkata as well.
The statement added that ED raided houses and business institutes of three Bangladeshi citizens named PK Halder, Pritish Kumar Halder, Pranesh Kumar Halder and several of their associates. PK Halder was involved in the laundering of billions of taka. According to ED, “Major shares of that money were smuggled to India and other countries of the world.”