10 men awarded prison terms in Hall-Mark loan scam

News Desk :
A court in Dhaka has jailed 10 people, including six former officials of state-owned Sonali Bank, for varying terms over the embezzlement of Tk 52 million in a case tied to the notorious Hall-Mark Group scam.
Of them, nine convicts will serve 17 years in prison, reports bdnews24.com
Judge Md Iqbal Hossain awarded a reduced jail time of eight years to Sheikh Altaf Hossain, a former deputy general manager of the bank, taking his partial paralysis into account.
All 10 convicts have been fined as well.
Six of them are former officials of the bank: managing director Humayun Kabir, deputy managing director Mainul Haque, general manager Noni Gopal Nath, deputy general manager Sofiz Uddin Ahmed, assistant general manager Md Kamrul Hossain and executive officer Md Abdul Matin.
The three other convicts are Saiful Islam Raza, managing director of Paragon Knit Composite Ltd, a sister concern of Hall-Mark Group, Abdullah Al Mamun, a director of Paragon Knit, and Md Makbul Hossain, proprietor of Mondal Traders. The Hall-Mark Group scam is known as one of the biggest debt scandals in the banking history of Bangladesh. The group of companies had reportedly embezzled Tk 27.31 billion with the help of bank officials from the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of the Sonali Bank between 2010 and 2012.
According to the bank’s audit report, the group used the names of 42 different companies to withdraw the amount from the bank.
The Anti-Corruption Commission tasked to investigate the scandal, filed 38 cases against Hall-Mark Group and several officials of Sonali Bank.
Mir Ahmed Ali Salam, the ACC prosecutor, said the investigators had filed final reports for three of the cases as they could not find enough evidence to link the other perpetrators with the scam.

In the remaining 35 cases, the court took cognisance of charges against 62 people, including officials of Sonali Bank and staff from different companies within the Hall-Mark Group.

The same court earlier awarded prison terms and financial penalties to Sonali Bank officials and Paragon Composite officials in two other cases, said Mir Ahmed.

Four of the convicts, who have been in police custody, were present during the sentencing. The court issued arrest warrants against five others, who are reportedly on the run.