By Mark Ford

Charges have been brought against 25 people in Bangladesh for swindling more than US$333 million out of state-owned Sonali Bank.

The charges are part of the huge letter of credit (L/C) scams involving the Hallmark company.

Accused

The accused include Hallmark's chairman Jasmine Islam, managing director Tanvir Mahmud and a former managing director of Sonali Bank, Humayun Kabir.

Charges have also been brought against an official who issued fake trade licences to members of the Hallmark group.

Several scams

Amongst several scams, Hallmark opened L/Cs worth around US$64 millionin favour of three spinning mills to buy yarn.

The three companies banked with the same branch of Sonali Bank as Hallmark, which guaranteed to repay the L/Cs.

The bank purchased the acceptance bills and disbursed the money to the three companies' accounts.

Non-existent deals

The spinning mills then asked the bank branch to transfer the funds to the account of Hallmark, which then transferred the money to an account of an affiliate, Century International.

Investigations subsequently found that the three spinning mills were non-existent.

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the ICC or any of the other partners in DC-PRO.