Traditional land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Javed has accrued a staggering quantity of wealth out of the country starting from hundreds of luxurious properties spread all the procedure in which through extra than one continents, luxurious vehicles, crocodile shoes to Italian suits.
The former minister’s property empire used to be revealed in a recent investigation by Doha-essentially based entirely entirely Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit no longer too long ago.
The 25.11-minute file titled “The Minister’s Millions” has been printed on the present time (18 September) on Al Jazeera English’s YouTube channel.
Within the video, Saifuzzaman is heard telling AJ journos, who met him posing as property traders, that he “has a extraordinarily good penthouse” and that “he loves suits”.
“A Neat 200 Suit charges €6,000 [$8,000],” he’s heard announcing at one level in the video file.
The minister is also viewed giving a tour to the journos of his penthouse in the UK.
“It’s a extraordinarily personal house. I would like a extraordinarily stable house for my security,” he instructed the AJ journos at some level of the tour.
The 5-ground house has a condo theatre, a gymnasium, a ‘personal elevate’, and a ‘glossy Rolls Royce’ parked in the storage.
In accordance with the file, the earlier minister built a half-billion-dollar property empire on a modest official salary.
“Strict currency guidelines limit citizens from taking extra than $12,000 a yr out of Bangladesh, and no longer easy govt guidelines ban ministers from maintaining directorships or making the most of personal businesses,” a press assertion issued by Al Jazeera Media Network on the file reads.
The assertion reads, that Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, who’s also a detailed ally of the now deposed high minister Sheikh Hasina, equipped over 360 luxurious properties in Britain on my own worth $250m.
“His hunch for food for precise property spread to Dubai, Contemporary York, Singapore and Malaysia,” states the click assertion.
The politician boasted of his great connections, it added.
“My father used to be very near the high minister [Sheikh Hasina], in actuality, and I’m also… She is my boss… She is conscious of I in actuality own a commercial right here [in Britain],” Saifuzzaman is quoted by the AJ.
The AJ file highlights that his property searching for to search out gained tempo in 2017 when he self-discipline up UK companies but accelerated in 2019 when he grew to became a govt minister.
Sheikh Hasina is presently in exile in India following her govt’s brutal crackdown on student protests in July, and heaps of of her ministers, including Chowdhury, own fled the country.
“Bangladesh authorities are in actuality investigating claims that he laundered millions of bucks in the UK; they’ve frozen his financial institution accounts and introduced reduction watch over of his family-owned financial institution, UCBL, to defend depositors’ cash,” reads the AJ Media Network assertion
The AJ newshounds met with the minister posing as property traders final yr in his $14m London house where he bragged about spending hundreds of bucks readily on hand-made crocodile shoes and tailored Italian suits from top London stores.
Chowdhury instructed Al Jazeera that his properties were purchased with funds earned by his respectable businesses in the UK, the UAE and America, and that he’s the sufferer of a political witch-hunt.
Here’s no longer the first time Saifuzzaman’s extensive wealth has map to the fore.
Bangladesh’s length in-between govt has already approached the United Kingdom to assist probe the abroad wealth of allies of Hasina, with explicit level of interest on figuring out the provision of funds musty to pay for a UK property portfolio worth £150mn owned by Saifuzzaman.
The govt. is also investigating whether or no longer Hasina’s regime diverted spherical $17 billion abroad from the country’s banking machine, Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur used to be quoted by Monetary Events in a recent file.
Transparency Global UK earlier this yr cited the British precise property portfolio owned by companies linked to former land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury as an illustration of “unexplained wealth”.
The Monetary Events reviewed the HM Land Registry and UK Corporations Condo recordsdata and chanced on that entities controlled by Chowdhury purchased no longer much less than 280 properties for extra than £150mn.
It chanced on that the bulk of the properties were purchased between 2019 and 2022, with Chowdhury’s tenure as land minister beginning from 2019.
The properties embody the freehold to the listed Emerson Bainbridge Condo in Fitzrovia, central London, 61 properties in Tower Hamlets, east London, and the scheme of a Co-op supermarket in Bristol.
The financing of the UK property purchases are unclear, even supposing the businesses own registered charges at Corporations Condo, indicating the say of mortgage debt, the Monetary Events reported on the present time.
Chowdhury’s attorney Ajmalul Hossain KC instructed the Monetary Events that his client had “nothing to conceal” and denied he had stolen anything.
In a press conference earlier this yr, Chowdhury also said his abroad property got right here from international commercial pursuits.
Earlier this yr, Bloomberg Info reported that Saifuzzaman Chowdhury has built up a UK precise property empire of extra than 350 properties worth over Tk2,000 crore. The Bloomberg reports also suggest the earlier minister’s involvement in investments in Ny, US, extra including to the scrutiny surrounding his financial portfolio.
The Anti-Corruption Price (ACC) final month launched an investigation in opposition to Saifuzzaman over the alleged acquisition of unlawful property worth crores of taka through irregularities and corruption.
The ACC also sought recordsdata on stock market investments by the earlier land minister and his family participants as allotment of its ongoing investigation.
