'Wage earnings' cover-up? AL leader's Tk 730cr under scrutiny

A jaw-dropping Tk 730 crore landed in Bangladesh, cloaked as tax-free “expatriate income”—but the man behind it wasn’t a hardworking migrant. 

NBR Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan dropped the bombshell at a recent event, hinting at a scandal without naming names. “Action’s coming,” he teased. “You’ll know soon.” 

Now, the mask is off: it is Syed Mohammad Faruqi Hasan, an Awami League stalwart and Protik Group chairman, accused of whitening black money in a scheme stretching back years.  

A businessman, not a worker

Faruqi, a Dhaka Tax Zone-5 filer, did not sweat abroad—he schemed. 

Sources peg the haul at Tk 721 crore, funnelled from China between 2015 and 2022, branded as wage earnings to dodge Tk 180 crore in taxes. 

“Expatriate income’s tax-free,” Abdur Rahman Khan had explained, a perk meant for overseas workers. Faruqi flipped it, pocketing cash incentives instead of paying up. 

NBR insiders say he is tied to firms like China’s Norinco and China Shipbuilding—hinting the cash might not even be his own, but a laundering front for Awami League heavyweights.  

The money trail 

The numbers stagger: Tk 269 crore in 2021-22, Tk 77 crore and Tk 81 crore the two years prior, plus Tk 300 crore over four earlier years—all logged as “expatriate income” in tax filings. “Collusion with tax officials greased it,” an NBR source told Jago News. 

Since Sheikh Hasina’s August 5 exit and exile, Faruqi is vanished—unreachable by phone, absent from Protik’s Dhanmondi office, and reportedly overseas. His accounts, and his firm’s, are now frozen.  

A political stain  

Faruqi’s no stranger to power. A former vice-president of Dhanmondi’s Awami League unit, he straddled business and politics, helming Protik Group’s housing and service ventures. 

NBR intelligence smells a rat: money smuggled out, then rerouted as “trade commissions” to bleach it white. 

“It’s not all his,” NBR suspect, eyeing party elites. An unnamed official pegged the tax dodge at Tk 180 crore over nine years—cash that should’ve hit public coffers.  

NBR’s reckoning 

Why did this slip past? “We’re digging,” the NBR’s tax intelligence unit says, probing complicit officials and true ownership. Khan’s coy “wait and see” now looms large—action’s brewing, and Faruqi’s flight might not outrun it. 

For Bangladesh, it’s a tale of greed, loopholes, and a fallen regime’s shadow. Who really bankrolled this Tk 730 crore drama? The answer’s closing in.