ACC bans foreign travel by former PLFS chair, two directors

The Anti-Corruption Commission on Monday imposed a ban on foreign travel by former

People’s Leasing and Financial Services chairman M Moazzam Hossain and two former PLFS
directors — Biswajit Kumar Roy and Khobiruddin Mia.

The ACC decision came a week after Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit of Bangladesh
Bank instructed all the country’s banks and non-bank financial institutions not to conduct any
transaction with PLFS.

The crisis-hit non-bank financial institution, PLFS, is going into liquidation.

Responding to a High Court order, the BFIU also instructed the banks and NBFIs to block fund
withdrawal from the accounts of eight former directors and three former top executives of PLFS.

The ACC sent an instruction to the Special Branch of police to issue the travel ban against the
three persons at every air and land ports of the country, ACC public relations officer Pranab
Kumar Bhattacharjee told reporters.

He said that ACC assistant director Muhammad Sirajul Isalm imposed the ban as Sirajul was
investigating a case filed in this regard.

In January this year, the ACC sued former PLFS executive director Md Helal Uddin, director
Biswajit Kumar Roy, his wife Shilpi Rani Roy, his brothers Indrajit Kumar Roy and Ranbir
Kumar Roy for embezzling Tk 10.36 crore from the NBFI.

According to the complaint, the persons took out the money in loans in phases from PLFS
between 2005 and 2018.

The case statement said that the swindlers opened accounts with PLFS without collateral,
defying the rules of loan agreement of the organisation.

On July 14, Bangladesh Bank filed an application with the High Court for liquidation of PLFS
following approval from the finance ministry.

Irregularities in PLFS and its failure to repay depositors’ money prompted the central bank to
seek government’s approval for liquidation of the entity.

Earlier, the BB removed the previous board of directors of the company based on an inspection
on June 9, 2015.

The situation of the NBFI, however, continued to deteriorate despite the BB moves to revive its
financial health.
As of December last year, PLFS, established in November, 1997, collected around Tk 2,000
crore — Tk 700 crore from individuals and Tk 1,300 crore from different banks and NBFIs.

Out of the entity’s Tk 1,131 crore disbursed loans, Tk 748 crore have become defaulted,
according to the BB data.

Of the defaulted loans, Tk 570 crore was swindled by the entity’s directors.