Staff reporter :
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has approved filing six cases against 11 officials from six recruiting agencies, including Debate for Democracy Chair and Merit Trade International Ltd Chairman Hassan Ahamed Chowdhury Kiron, for allegedly embezzling and laundering over Tk525 crore by charging excessive fees from Bangladeshi workers going to Malaysia.
According to ACC Director General (Prevention) Akhter Hossain, the accused collected nearly five times the government-approved migration cost of Tk78,990 from 31,331 workers through a syndicate.
The cases include Ruhul Amin, owner of Amin Tours & Travels: allegedly collected Tk124.45 crore from 7,430 workers, Hassan Ahamed Chowdhury Kiron and his wife, managing director of Merit Trade International Ltd: allegedly collected Tk58.44 crore from 3,489 workers, Shameem Ahmed Chowdhury Noman, owner of Sadia International: allegedly collected Tk55.62 crore from 3,321 workers.
Md Iqbal Hossain and Badruddoza Chowdhury, Imperial Resource Ltd: allegedly collected Tk135.69 crore from 8,101 workers, Mohammad Moniruzzaman and Md Alamgir Kabir, RRC Human Resource Service Ltd: allegedly collected Tk87.13 crore from 5,202 workers and Abdullah Shahed, Md Zainal Abedin, and Shamsher Ahmed, Thanex International Ltd: allegedly collected Tk63.88 crore from 3,788 workers.
Earlier, the ACC had filed cases in March against 32 people for embezzling Tk1,128 crore and in September against senior officials of 13 agencies for misappropriating Tk1,159 crore.
Malaysia had suspended manpower recruitment from Bangladesh in 2018 due to syndicate activities. Recruitment resumed on 19 December 2021 under a new agreement, with the maximum migration cost set at Tk78,540 by the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas in 2022.
