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The Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is looking into allegations of tax evasion and illegal transfer of money abroad, including to the United Kingdom, by former land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury.
In this regard, the CIC sent a letter to the NBR’s International Taxation Wing last week, requesting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to take up the matter with authorities in the UK, a top official of the CIC said yesterday.
The CIC’s move comes following media reports on Chowdhury’s foreign assets.
In the past, The Daily Star and Bloomberg have run separate reports on Chowdhury’s assets in the UK. Most recently, Al Jazeera reported that Chowdhury has assets worth over $500 million in the UK.
The international taxation division has already taken the initiative to write to the foreign affairs ministry based on the CIC’s request.
“It may take one week for us to present it to the foreign ministry,” a top official of the NBR said.
As a citizen of Bangladesh, the ex-minister is supposed to pay taxes on income earned both in Bangladesh and overseas, he said.
Asked about further steps by the NBR, the official said: “We will mostly focus on tax evasion as per the income tax law as we are simply the tax authority.
“We aren’t the proper authority to bring back siphoned money. But we will cooperate with other government agencies to this end,” he added.
“At first, we will verify his ownership of the properties in the UK. Then we will check how the money was sent from Bangladesh. If there is any money laundering issue, we must file a case on it.”
Besides, some other agencies such as the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) will act if needed.
Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit went undercover to reveal how the former minister built a real estate empire worth around half a billion dollars, which he claims to have funded through his businesses.
Strict currency laws restrict citizens from taking more than $12,000 a year out of Bangladesh.
Al Jazeera revealed that Chowdhury, a close ally of the recently deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, bought over 360 luxury properties in Britain worth $250 million.
Saifuzzaman’s property buying spree gained pace in 2017 when he set up companies in the UK, but it accelerated even further in 2019 when he became a minister under the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government.
In December last year, The Daily Star published a report about Chowdhury’s portfolio of at least 260 properties in the UK, for which he paid at least £134.76 million or Tk 1,888 crore, according to the newspaper’s calculation from company filings publicly available on UK government websites.
The three-time Awami League lawmaker also has at least 537 mortgages against properties in the UK. A vast majority of these are in London.
However, his tax returns, submitted along with his affidavit to the Election Commission, state that he has no foreign income, according to The Daily Star report.