Two Sonali Bank officials on Wednesday said that some incumbent and former high officials of Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of the bank were involved in the embezzlement of around Tk 3,547 crore by Hallmark Group and five other companies.
The officials, emerging from the Anti-Corruption Commission’s office where they were interrogated in connection with Hallmark-Sonali Bank scam, told reporters, without their (the bank officials concerned) consent this financial scandal not possible.
Shyamol Kanti Nath, an assistant general manger, said he came to know about the Hallmark loan scam through newspapers in May this year. He then visited the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch as a member of the bank vigilance and control team.
After the visit the branch the team handed over the work to bank’s foreign exchange department, he said.
Replying to a question, Shyamol said primarily they thought that a number of officials of the branch were involved in the loan scam.
Naser Ahmed, an assistant general manager, said the then branch general manger, AKM Azizur Rahman, now suspended, misused his power and was directly involved with the embezzlement.
The ACC was also interrogating two deputy general managers Morshed Alam Khondoker and Abdul Momen Patwari and two other assistant general managers, Nesar Ahmed and Shamim Akhter of the bank’s head office.
The six-member ACC inquiry team, led by its deputy director Mir Joynul Abedin Shibli, interrogated them for six hours from 10:00am at the commission head office, its public relations officer Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya told reporters.
Earlier on Tuesday, the ACC quizzed six Sonali Bank head office officials in connection with the loan scam.
The commission has so far grilled 50 Sonali Bank and Halmark Group officials in this connection.
Sonali Bank has so far suspended 17 officials of various ranks because of their suspected involvement in the scam. Two other officials of the bank were also made officers on special duty.
The ACC, after receiving a letter from Bangladesh Bank on July 15, formed the inquiry team.