TDS Desk:

As Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Javed’s grip over United Commercial Bank (UCB) created a trail of disguised loans with abuse of political influence after he became a minister in 2019 back home, his brother Anisuzzaman Chowdhury Ronny’s assets saw a meteoric rise in the UK.

Last year, reported that Javed, the former land minister, and his wife Rukhmila Zaman co-own over 260 properties in the UK while Bloomberg News had put the figures at over 350 properties worth about £200 million, or over Tk 3,143 crore.

This newspaper has now tracked five UK companies owned by Ronny and his wife Imrana Zaman Chowdhury together or individually with their business partners. The firms hold properties worth £22.31 million, or over Tk 350 crore, acquired after Javed’s entry to now-deposed Hasina’s cabinet.

The firms are Bitcom Real Estate Ltd, Ronny 42 Ltd, AA Mandarin Ltd, Gilbert Street Estates Ltd and Sovereign Financing Ltd.

These companies all have a common trajectory – starting with pennies and no real income before suddenly acquiring high-end properties in London. These are seemingly holding companies for stashing wealth from unknown sources in the British real estate market.

For example, Ronny and Imrana incorporated Bitcom Real Estate Ltd in May 2020 with just a £100 issued capital. A little over a year later on July 15, 2021, the company purchased a £1.6 million apartment in a skyscraper called Westmark Tower in Central London, documents show.

Despite being a company specialising in “the buying and selling of real estate,” Bitcom never purchased any other property as of 2024, with its tangible assets now valued at £1.8 million, company registration documents show.

The couple incorporated another UK firm, Ronny 42 Ltd, in August 2019. A hundred pounds was all the company was worth until it bought a £9.1 million property in the luxurious 17 Park Crescent in central London on October 1, 2020. Like Bitcom, Ronny 42 Ltd has not purchased any other property.

Similarly, AA Mandarin Ltd was formed with only £100 and had no income, but by July 2023, the company acquired a £2.8 million apartment on the sixth floor of the 5-star London hotel Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, lease documents show.

In addition to a string of homes in the UK, Ronny and Imrana list one property in Dubai’s luxurious Palm Jumeirah, the upmarket fan-shaped artificial island off the Persian Gulf. The property address mentioned in lease documents leads straight to a flat in Dubai The Palm, which is described on its website as “one of the most exquisite hotels on The Palm, Dubai”.

Neither the Ronny-Imrana couple nor ex-minister Javed appear to have any other viable businesses in the UK that could have been used to generate income. There is also no record that they took permission from Bangladesh Bank to move money abroad, which is mandatory. So, how did they acquire so much wealth in the UK?

British company registration documents state that Ronny and Imrana hold golden passports of Antigua and Barbuda, a Caribbean tax haven for the world’s wealthy. It offers the golden passports for a $230,000 donation to the National Development Fund or the purchase of real estate worth at least $300,000.

In a 2020 interview with Edgeprop Singapore, finance broker Masood Rashid described how one of his clients bought a property with a mortgage and used the steep interest earnings of the offshore cash deposit to pay the mortgage, and “still make a profit”. He did not give any name.

“It’s called arbitrage,” Rashid, co-founder of Opes Financial Partners, explained and added that his specialisation is in “politically exposed person”.  The broker had arranged a £12 million property in London for Javed, was able to track via property documents and an announcement on LinkedIn by the broker.

Asked how he got the financing for his properties in the UK and how he was paying the multiple mortgages, Ronny said he obtained the mortgages as a UK citizen through “proper due diligence” in line with the country’s law.

“I have been doing various business in the UK since 2001. I am able to service mortgages from these businesses,” he said in a written response.

He also said his father, late Awami League leader Akhtaruzzaman Chowdhury Babu who once took over the UCB bank at gunpoint, had businesses in the UK since 1965. “As one of his successors, I have inherited some of them. From where I was able to put down the down payment,” Ronny said.

MILKING UCB

Javed entered the British real estate sector a year after the Awami League returned to power in 2009, and his wealth accumulation there shot up after he became a member of Sheikh Hasina’s 2019-2024 cabinet, company documents show.

He raised the number of his companies fourfold to eight in just three years. Ronny followed in his brother’s footsteps, opening his first company in the UK in 2019 and expanding his and his wife’s business to five firms.

This meteoric rise in offshore wealth came at a time when the political clout of Javed, and by association Ronny’s, consolidated back home. It was apparent on the board of UCB, where the family and their representatives had 10 out of 14 director’s posts until mid-2024 and eight until the restructuring of the board by the central bank last Tuesday.

The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) had earlier frozen the accounts of Javed and his wife Rukhmila after the fall of the Awami League government on August 5, but Ronny and Imrana have remained untouched.

Rukhmila was the chairperson of UCB’s board of directors. After the BFIU had frozen both her assets and accounts, Javed’s sister Roxana Zaman Chaudhury was made the chairperson. Their siblings Ronny, Asifuzzaman Chowdhury, and Afroza Zaman were directors. Four other directors were their employees, either from Javed and Ronny’s main family business, Aramit Group, or Ronny’s business, Navana Pharmaceuticals, or companies opened by their children and business partners.

Highly placed sources inside UCB said that Javed used to sit in on the bank’s board meetings although he was not a part of the bank in any way since he became a minister. With a board more like a family get-together, disguised and related party loans got easy approval.

After the BFIU’s measure, 36 employees of UCB in a letter to the central bank accused Javed and Ronny of benefiting from disguised loans.

For example, Aramit’s Protocol Officer Mohammed Forman Ullah Chowdhury,  whose starting salary in 2017 was Tk 20,000, received a Tk 25 crore loan as the proprietor of Chattogram-based M/S Vision Trading in March 2020.

Mohammed Adnan Imam, a UK real estate businessman and director of NRBC Bank, secured UCB capital facilities worth at least Tk 1,516 crore for six companies owned by or directly connected to him, one nested in another, paper trail shows.

Of these companies, Adnan’s AWR Developments (BD) Ltd and AWR Real Estate Ltd were given Tk 617 crore by the bank, Genex Infosys Tk 426 crore, Bangla-UK Agro Products Ltd Tk 302 crore, Fulpur Agro City Tk 51 crore, and TSN Trade & Infrastructure Development Ltd Tk 120 crore, bank documents show.

Asked whether these were related party loans, Ronny said these were not related as they were public limited companies.

Sovereign Financing Ltd, one of the five companies owned by Ronny or his wife in the UK, was co-founded by Adnan in 2022. The company is completely dormant now.

Contacted, Adnan denied having any active business relationship with Ronny and receiving the related party loans.

However, Gilbert Street Estates Ltd, one of Ronny’s five firms in the UK, is co-owned by Adnan’s wives. The real estate company worth £10.52 million, or over Tk 165 crore, has a property on Gilbert Street in Mayfair, London, according to lease documents. One of Adnan’s real estate companies and all of Ronny’s UK companies are housed in that property, the documents show.

Sharif Abdullah, a former UCB vice-president who left the bank in October 2023, described how he was made to disburse large loans to companies not worth their salt, and how the funds were likely siphoned off.

“As a banker, we have to find out the actual beneficial owner of the account. For example, if a police officer’s homemaker mother-in-law opens an account with Tk 10 crore with no supporting documents, it is pretty certain that the beneficial owner of the account is the police officer. It is as simple as that,” said Sharif. “The siphoning of funds from loans was primarily executed through working capital facilities, such as time loans and overdrafts, rather than term loans.”

Sharif said he was compelled to approve Tk 450 crore “unethical loans” benefiting Javed and Ronny for an agro farm which had a total valuation of Tk 7 crore at best. He also admitted to disbursing Tk 100 crore loans to a construction firm with fake work orders.

He said he had visited a steel company with the capital machinery so worn out that they could be sold only as scrap. “Yet the capital machinery was valued at Tk 400 crore. Another company was seeking to acquire that firm, and we asked for Tk 300 crore on their behalf – we got Tk 250 crore. My refusal to approve this loan led to severe threats and intimidation,” alleged Sharif, who now lives in Australia. “I faced unbelievably high pressure from the management to provide these clients with loans they are not fit for.”

POLITICAL INFLUENCE

The sheer abuse of political privilege to bend the rules was clear as the day to regular employees of UCB. At least two sets of photos posted by his followers showed Javed holding political meetings inside the bank despite not being a part of it. The latest photos were from July 15, 2024.

Bank insiders identified the conference room where the meeting was held in a room right beside the boardroom at their Gulshan office.

“Normal employees are not allowed inside that space,” said an employee of the bank, requesting anonymity.

Ronny used to drive around in a car with a flag stand, according to multiple photos, indicating his willingness to abuse the political privilege afforded to his brother.

confirmed that it was Ronny’s car – a Bentley Flying Spur Hybrid.

A flag stand is only allowed for the senior most members of the government and the state, including the president, the prime minister, the Speaker and deputy Speaker, the chief justice, the chief whip, cabinet ministers and the leader of the official opposition. A member of the general public, even if he or she is a business magnate, is not allowed to use a flag stand.

Asked if he used a flag stand in his car, Ronny said: “As my brother was a land minister, once in a while we used to travel together, for which I had to keep the stand.”