Bangladesh’s former Land Minister, Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, has reportedly spent over $500 million on luxury properties in London, Dubai, and New York, yet he failed to declare these overseas assets on his tax returns in Bangladesh, according to Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit).
The I-Unit conducted an undercover investigation in the UK, uncovering how the 55-year-old Chowdhury, hailing from a prominent family in Chittagong, built a property empire despite Bangladesh’s currency regulations limiting citizens to an annual withdrawal of $12,000.
Dr. Shahdeen Malik, a Supreme Court advocate in Bangladesh, noted that the constitution mandates politicians to declare their foreign assets.
Bangladeshi authorities have since frozen Chowdhury’s bank accounts and initiated an investigation into claims that he laundered millions into the UK.
Chowdhury was a close ally of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled the country in August amid violent crackdowns on student protests that resulted in numerous fatalities. Following her departure, an investigation into widespread corruption during her administration was launched.
The central bank of Bangladesh has frozen Chowdhury and his family’s bank accounts, while the Anti-Corruption Commission is probing allegations of his illicit accumulation of “thousands of crore taka” (hundreds of millions of dollars) and subsequent money laundering in the UK.
