Months after the ouster of Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina, the interim govt in charge of the country has made her extradition from India a top priority. But her return isn’t the only concern; Dhaka is also looking to recover what it says is billions of dollars that the ousted leader’s associates siphoned out of the country during the time she was in office.
In a report on Feb 28, Financial Times of London focused on acquisitions of one such individual, former Bangladesh land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, saying it amounted to an “extraordinary real estate empire built up, for the most part, while he served as an MP in the govt of Sheikh Hasina”.
FT has identified 482 properties acquired by Chowdury or his close family at a cost of at least $295mn between 1992 and 2024, making him one of the top targets of anti-corruption investigations launched under Nobel Peace laureate Mohd Yunus, the head of the interim govt. The period it is interested in spans the 15 years from 2009 to 2024, when Sheikh Hasina enjoyed an uninterrupted run as Bangladesh PM in her second stint in office.
Assets scattered all over
The locations of Chowdhury’s properties stretch from Dubai’s Burj Khalifa district and the artificial Palm Jumeirah archipelago to flats in London’s commuter towns. The surge in Chowdhury’s property acquisitions came after he was appointed land minister in 2019, FT said.
Before he became Sheikh Hasina’s land minister, Chowdhury served as an MP of her party for over five years. In 2023, he declared to Bangladesh parliament assets worth $2.3mn. His last declared income tax return, for 2017, states he had no foreign income at all. FT says other Bangladeshi elites being targeted by the interim govt are estimated to have acquired property worth $578mn in countries ranging from Singapore to Canada.
Loyal family
Chowdhury’s father Akhtaruzzaman was an Awami League politician and “close confidant” of Sheikh Hasina, FT said. He was a member of the founding board of directors of United Commercial Bank, established in 1983. Akhtaruzzaman was accused of being involved in cases of violence related to UCB – including the murder of its founding chairman in 1993 – that FT said the “interim govt sees as precedent for the forcible takeover of other banks in the final years of Sheikh Hasina’s rule”.
Cronies and gifts
A report commissioned by Mohd Yunus claimed that Bangladesh lost “$16bn annually to money laundering under Sheikh Hasina’s rule from 2009 to 2024”.
FT quoted Yale professor Mushfiq Mobarak as saying that politicians associated with Sheikh Hasina misused the govt to forcibly allow their cronies to take control of large commercial banks and then siphon off “billions of dollars through ‘loans’ that would never be repaid”.
These cronies obliged the politicians with gifts of real estate abroad.
Others under scrutiny, too
Dhaka has engaged international consultant majors Deloitte, EY and KPMG to perform an asset quality review of Bangladesh’s banks and set up joint investigative teams to “trace the assets of 10 leading families, as well as Sheikh Hasina’s”. While the interim govt hasn’t specifically named anybody, FT said Bashundhara Group chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan and S Alam Group chairman Saiful Alam are among those who have been mentioned by govt officials.
FT also quoted Yunus as saying there is “significant money” in Canada and that Bangladeshi elites have also bought assets in Dubai, from where it will be tough to make any recovery.