Laundering Money: PK Halder produced in Kolkata court

The hearing of a money laundering case against Prashanta Kumar Halder, former managing director of erstwhile NRB Global Bank, will be held on August 10 in Kolkata, India.

Halder and his associates were yesterday produced before a special court, which fixed the date for the hearing.

Having embezzled at least Tk 3,000 crore from financial institutions in Bangladesh, PK Halder had been on the run since October 2019. He was arrested along with an associate in West Bengal on May 14.

On July 11, India's enforcement directorate (ED) pressed charges against Halder and five others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

Halder, who is being interrogated by India's ED, revealed names of some persons in West Bengal who have links to ruling politicians in the state, sources in ED said.

The ED is investigating how many properties were bought by Halder in India.

The sources said Halder's links with politicians in West Bengal are under scrutiny because he could not have set up his network of contacts and real estates without local connections.

Halder was arrested a day after the ED carried out search operations at various premises linked to him and his associates in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district.

The searches, carried out at the request of the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit and Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), led to detection of a large number of properties of Halder, including houses, and many important documents, including land deeds.

ED has said Halder was posing as an Indian citizen named Shibshankar Halder after managing to fraudulently obtain various government identities like ration card from West Bengal, Indian Voter ID card, PAN and Aadhar card.

The ED has ascertained that Halder also managed to float companies in India under the fraudulently obtained identities and documents and purchased immovable properties at various places including in plush localities of Kolkata.

Between 2009 and 2019, he and his associates swindled about Tk 10,000 crore from four non-banking financial institutions -- Reliance Finance, People's Leasing and Financial Services, FAS Finance, and International Leasing and Financial Services in Bangladesh.

The ACC filed at least 34 cases over the embezzlement and has so far seized about Tk 1,000 crore of Halder's properties.

In October 2019, when the investigators began probing loan embezzlement at the NBFIs, Halder fled Bangladesh.