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Britain’s National Crime Agency has frozen more than 300 UK properties worth about £185mn linked to Bangladesh’s former land minister, as the south Asian country seeks to recover billions of dollars allegedly siphoned off by the deposed regime of Sheikh Hasina.
The NCA said on Thursday that it had frozen 342 properties with a combined purchase price of roughly £185mn after it was granted orders by the High Court in London on June 5.
The properties are owned by or linked to Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, land minister of Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
The NCA freezing orders mark one of the largest asset seizures carried out by the agency and includes a high-end property in the St John’s Wood area of north London, the person said.
They also mark one of the highest-profile developments yet in Bangladesh leader Muhammad Yunus’s effort to track down foreign assets that his interim administration claims were bought with money taken out of the country under Sheikh Hasina, whose authoritarian rule was toppled last year.
“We can confirm that the NCA has secured freezing orders against a number of properties as part of an ongoing civil investigation,” the agency said on Thursday.
Freezing orders prevent a person from selling or disposing of an asset while an investigation is under way. The seizure was first reported by Al Jazeera.
Chowdhury, his lawyer and two family members did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Yunus, whose interim government is working with overseas authorities to attempt to recover money taken out of Bangladesh under the Hasina regime, was in the UK this week for the first time since becoming leader.
Ahsan Mansur, head of Yunus’s asset recovery task force, and anti-corruption commission chief Abdul Momen met the NCA in London on Wednesday.
“I must say the progress on the British front is very encouraging for us,” Mansur told the Financial Times. “They have good sources of information, and we are also supporting their actions . . . we are hopeful that more actions will be taken by the British authorities.”
A white paper commissioned by the Yunus administration last year estimated that some $234bn was laundered out of Bangladesh during Hasina’s rule, which lasted between 2009 and August 2024.
Mansur and Yunus claim that Hasina government officials and their allies siphoned money out of the banking system using fraudulent loans or over-invoicing, or skimmed money off big-ticket infrastructure projects.
Supporters of Hasina’s party, the Awami League, which was formally banned from all activities in Bangladesh last month, have accused the new administration of pursuing political vendettas in its crackdown on alleged corruption by the old regime.
In 2019, the NCA secured a settlement of £190mn — the largest of its kind at the time — with one of Pakistan’s wealthiest businessmen, Malik Riaz Hussain, after allegations the agency did not disclose led to freezing orders on his assets. The assets included a central London property at 1 Hyde Park Place.
Additional reporting by Susannah Savage
