Destiny Group Managing Director Rafiqul Amin was sentenced to 12 years in prison while its President M Harun-Ar-Rashid, former army chief, got four-year jail term in a case over embezzlement and money laundering at the organisation.
Judge Sheikh Nazmul Alam of Dhaka's Special Judge's Court-4 delivered the verdict in the case on Thursday, reports bdnews24.com.
A total of 46 suspects stand accused of misappropriating nearly Tk 18.61 billion in the case.
The court heard 202 witnesses for the state in the case started by the Anti-Corruption Commission against the Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society 10 years ago, ACC lawyer Mir Ahmed Ali Salam previously said.
Destiny Group Chairman Mohammad Hossain and MD Rafiqul have been behind bars for the last 10 years, while Harun-Ar-Rashid was out on bail prior to the verdict.
The defence lawyers said earlier they would move the High Court to appeal if the verdict was not in their favour.
The ACC filed two cases against the group, one against the Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society and the other against the Destiny Tree Plantation Project, on July 31, 2012 with Kalabagan police in Dhaka.
In May 2014, the national graft-busting agency submitted charges in both cases at the end of the investigation. Nineteen people were accused in the case against Destiny Tree Plantation Ltd, while 46 were accused in the Destiny Multipurpose Cooperative Society case.
Harun-Ar-Rashid and Rafiqul are accused in both cases.
The ACC found out that Destiny collected Tk 19.01 billion for the Multipurpose Cooperative Project in 2008 and embezzled Tk 18.61 billion from there, causing losses to 850,000 investors.
According to the charges, the group had collected Tk 24.45 billion through the Destiny Tree Plantation project from investors since 2008 and embezzled around Tk 22.57 billion.
More than 1.7 million investors fell victim to this misappropriation.
The investigation report mentioned that Destiny Group has 28 organisations under its name. The accused deposited the money collected in the bank accounts of those organisations and later transferred the money to accounts in other banks.
The ACC found 722 such accounts in 34 banks. All of them, however, have been frozen.
The cases also allege that the embezzled money was laundered.
