Trial of 5 people including Papia begins in Money Laundering Act

PBC News:  A Dhaka court has framed charges against five persons, including expelled Jubo Mohila League leader Shamima Noor Papia and her husband Mafizur Rahman alias Sumon Chowdhury in a Tk 3.23 crore money laundering case filed at Gulshan Police Station.

The three other accused are Papia’s associates Sabbir Khandaker, Sheikh Tayiba Noor and Zubair Alam.

Of them, Papia, Sumon, Sabbir and Tayiba were earlier arrested and they are now in jail custody while Zubair Alam was shown “fugitive” in the charge sheet.

The four, now in jail, pleaded not guilty and demanded justice after Badrul Alam Bhuiyan of the Special Judge’s Court-8 of Dhaka read out the charges to them.

Charges were framed against Zubair Alam in absentia and arrest warrant was issued against him.

The judge fixed September 25 for starting trial of the case.

On October 10 last year, Md Ibrahim Hossain, an inspector of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and also the investigation officer (IO) of the case, submitted a charge against them.

CID Inspector Md Moniruzzaman filed the case against them with Gulshan Police Station under the Money Laundering Control Act on March 21 of 2020.

A team of RAB-1 arrested Papia, her husband and their two accomplices from Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on February 22, 2019 on charges of carrying forged notes and smuggling those out of the country.

Then the RAB-7 personnel seized 7 passports, Tk 2,12,270 in cash, Tk 25,600 forged notes, 310 Indian notes, 420 Srilankan notes, 11,091 US dollars and 7 mobile phones from their possession.

On February 23, RAB personnel launched a drive at Papia’s Indira Road residence and seized Tk 58 lakh 41 thousand, five passports, three cheque books, foreign currency, and 10 ATM cards of different banks.

Later, five separate cases were filed against Papia and her husband. A case was filed at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station against Papia and her husband under the Drug and Arms Acts, money laundering case with Gulshan Police Station, a case for possessing forged notes under the Special Powers Act with Biman Bandar Police Station.

On March 21, 2020, CID inspector Md Moniruzzaman filed a case with the Gulshan Police Station under the Money Laundering Act.

Another CID inspector Ibrahim Hossain submitted chargesheet accusing five persons including on December 27, 2021.

It was stated in the chargesheet that Papia’s husband Mofizur Rahman had suddenly become the owner of Tk 5 crore illegally. The entire amount of cash was concealed underneath the cot instead of keeping in banks so that none could know about the money. He even didn’t tell his wife about keeping such a large amount at home. Subsequently, Mofizur went India. When he was staying at India, Papia suddenly learnt that there was money kept underneath the cot at home. She later spend the illegal money. Of the amount, they paid over Tk 3 crore as room rent.