Casino 'kingpin' Salim Prodhan, 8 others arrested from Baridhara shisha bar

Salim Prodhan, a controversial businessman who was jailed for running illegal casino business, and eight others were arrested on charges of running an illegal shisha bar and lounge in Dhaka's Baridhara area.

Al Amin Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of Gulshan Division Police, confirmed it to The Daily Star.

Police arrested them from a shisha bar at Baridhara, which was being operated by Salim Prodhan illegally, he said.

Filing of a case is underway and they will be sent to court soon, the police officer added.

Salim came to the fore in 2019 when law enforcers conducted drives against illegal casino businesses.

He was arrested from a Bangkok-bound Thai Airways flight at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on September 30 of 2019, over his alleged involvement in running an online casino business.

Later that night, the Rapid Action Battalion raided his office and residence in Gulshan and arrested Salim's associates Aktaruzzaman, Roman, and Masum.

Rab also recovered 48 bottles of foreign liquor, Tk 28 lakh in cash, foreign currencies from 23 different countries worth around Tk 77 lakh, 12 passports, 32 cheque books of 13 banks, one large server used in game operating, four laptops and two deer hides.

A Rab mobile court also sentenced Salim to six-month imprisonment for illegally keeping the deer hides.

On April 30, 2023, a Dhaka court sentenced Salim to eight years' imprisonment in a case filed over amassing Tk 57.79 crore illegally and laundering about Tk 22 crore.

He was later released on bail.