Man arrested for alleged fraud involving Beximco’s TK 460m meant for solar schemes

A man was arrested on charge of embezzling crores of taka from Beximco in Panchagarh.

Detective Branch (DB) of police arrested him from Satmera Union of Sadar upazila on Thursday evening, Abu Sayeed Chowdhury, officer-in-charge of Tentulia police station, said on Saturday, reports UNB.

The accused is Harun-ur Rashid Pradhan, son of late Gafur Uddin Pradhan of Satmera Basamor area of Devnagar union of Tentulia upazila of the district. He was on the run since two cases were filed against him and 10 others in November 2022. He is known to be a local leader of ruling Awami League.

According to case details, Beximco Group took an initiative to set up two solar power plants with a capacity of 30 megawatts and 50 megawatts in Tentulia of Panchagarh under the leadership of Osman Kaiser Chowdhury, the director of the company.

Accused Harun was primarily appointed by the company to oversee the land acquisition process for the projects.

Three years have passed since then, but the accused didn’t complete the task and instead submitted some fake and forged documents of land acquisition.

Embezzling Tk 46.35 crore from the company, Harun Pradhan and his cohorts went into hiding soon after that, according to the case details.

Later, Al Mamun, deputy manager of Beximco Power Company Limited, filed cases against 11 people including Rashid Pradhan on November 14, 2022, at Dhanmondi Model police Station under one of the two projects.

Meanwhile, since the financial investment of about Tk1000 crore for the 2nd project is coming from abroad, due to international legal complications and to protect the image of Bangladesh to the international investors, it was not possible to file any kind of lawsuit directly in the name of the project.

But Beximco is planning to file a separate case for foreign projects.

A case of embezzling Tk1.5 crore has already been filed at the individual level.

A total of 191 cases are being processed against some individuals and institutions involved in the fraudulence.

"Efforts are on to arrest the other accused", added the OC.