Harris Chowdhury smuggled US$30 million from Bangladesh

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Scandalous leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Political Secretary Harris Chowdhury smuggled over US$30 million from Bangladesh during the period of 2001-2006.  According to a credible source, Chowdhury’s smuggling of millions of dollars to the United Kingdom and few other countries were directly handled by his confidante Ziaul Huq Munna.

The source also said, immediately after military-backed interim government seized power on January 11, 2007 when BNP-Jamaat government was plotting to hold a one-sided election with the help of their loyalists in the administration, Harris Chowdhury went into hiding. After remaining in hiding in Dhaka and Sylhet for few days, he crossed the Bangladesh-India border and entered Karimganj in Assam province in India. During his stay in Assam, Harris Chowdhury’s relatives there managed an ‘Adhar Card’ and Indian passport using a fake name. Immediately after the 2008 general elections in Bangladesh and landslide victory of Awami League, Harris Chowdhury left India for Iran using Indian passport. He stayed in Iran for several months and finally flew to the United Kingdom. In Britain, he purchased properties and businesses in the names of his relatives with the corruption money he had smuggled out from Bangladesh.

The source also said, Harris Chowdhury hold shares in a plastic pipe manufacturing factory in Bangladesh along side shares in a number of industrial projects as well as in a share-brokerage company which is enlisted with Dhaka Stock Exchange. In Britain, Harris Chowdhury owns shares in a number of business ventures including a money exchange shop, couple of grocery stores and a real estate development company.

During his stay in Britain since 2009, Harris Chowdhury has been maintaining regular contact with BNP’s fugitive leader Tarique Rahman as well as a number of individuals including Mahmudur Rahman, Mukhlesur Rahman Chowdhury, Ashiq Islam alias Towhidul Islam (former official at Khaleda Zia’s office), Kanak Sarwar, Lt Col (sacked) Shahid Uddin Khan,  and former chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha.

In 2018, Harris Chowdhury decided to bring out a Bangla newspaper from the United Kingdom with the help of a number of journalists. But the project later was abandoned as BNP’s leader Mahmudur Rahman had already managed fund for bringing-out a vernacular daily named Amar Desh with financial assistance from Turkey’s ruling party and several leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, including the family of war criminal Mir Quashem Ali.

The source further said, during his stay in Britain, Harris Chowdhury had purchased citizenship of Vanuatu or Dominica with the help of local agents of those countries. In Britain, he was mostly staying at his house and was only meeting a hand-picked number of individuals, including Tarique Rahman during late hours of the night.

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