Dhaka court imposes travel ban on Evaly officials

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Dhaka Metropolitan Senior Special Judge KM Imrul Kayes has passed an order asking immigration authorities to stop two top officials of scandalous Multi Level Marketing (MLM) company Evaly. According to information, the court has imposed ban on Shamima Nasrin, Chairman and Mohammad Rassel, Managing Director of the company from leaving the country.

According to Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) sources, it has received numerous allegations against Evaly and recently Commerce Ministry has asked ACC to investigate irregularities of the MLM company. Accordingly, a two investigation teams have been formed which are headed by Assistant Director Mamunur Rashid Chowdhury and Deputy Assistant Director Mohammed Shihab Salam. The ACC source said, as it began investigating allegations of massive irregularities, the anti-graft body had received secret tips about Shamima Nasrin and Mohammad Rassel planning of fleeing the country. It said, the two top officials of Evaly were trying to book airline ticket to secretly leave Bangladesh.

Anti-Corruption Commission further said, it will investigate allegations of money laundering and once proved, specific cases will be lodged under Money Laundering Act of the country against Shamima Nasrin and Mohammed Russel.

The source said, it will also investigate what Evaly has done with hundreds of millions of takas it has received from the customers as advance payment.

Since its inception in 2018, Evaly has risen to prominence by offering various products at unbelievably discounted price, provided that payment is made at least one or two months in advance.

In a short period of time, the platform attracted droves of buyers for a range of fancy products, including motorcycles, refrigerators, ACs and cars all over the country.

Money was taken in advance for low-priced items but from the beginning, Evaly was notorious for keeping most of its customers waiting to receive their products. After months of dallying, it would eventually agree to refund some of the money but even that would take months to get back to the customers.

The lack of laws and policies on e-commerce meant that the company went unpunished even though the government was aware of the irregularities.

However, at the beginning of July, the Ministry of Commerce announced new regulations to quell the possibility of any scam or other malpractices. E-commerce platforms are now required to make delivery within 48 hours of taking an order, while advance payments have also been capped at 10 percent of a product’s price.

On July 14, the Ministry of Commerce asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to file a case against Evaly over the embezzlement BDT 3.38 billion owed to merchants, which was taken as an advance from customers.

The ministry also separately wrote to the ACC to initiate relevant legal actions against the online marketplace over the irregularities reported by Bangladesh Bank.

Talking to this correspondent, a government official said, there are serious discrepancies in the activities of Evaly and as the matter is further worsening with visibly no trace of billions of takas, authorities may now consider taking Evaly Chairperson Shamima Nasrin, and Managing Director Mohammad Rassel into custody. It said, Evaly is not any e-commerce company. Instead, it is a Ponzi Scheme.

Bkash suspends transactions with MLM companies

To protect customers’ interests, bKash has temporarily suspended its payment gateway service for Evaly, Alesha Mart, Dhamaka Shopping and seven other s0-called online marketplaces, which actually are MLM companies.

The other merchants are: Eorange, Sirajganj Shop, Aladinerprodip, Qcoom, Boom Boom, Adyan Mart, and Needs.

Earlier, several banks including Brac Bank, Bank Asia, Dhaka Bank, City Bank, Mutual Trust Bank, Prime Bank also suspended their transactions with Evaly following a Bangladesh Bank report.

Evaly trying to overcome the crisis

Meanwhile, Evaly authorities are reportedly trying to overcome the current crisis. But, according to experts, the company cannot regain confidence of the authorities concerned unless it can prove it has not misappropriated or smuggled our over BDT 4 billion, which is already missing from the balance sheet of the company.

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