Cyprus Freezes Property of S Alam Group Chairman Mohammed Saiful Alam

A district court in Nicosia, Cyprus, has frozen a two-storey residential property located in Parekklisia owned by prominent Bangladeshi businessman Mohammed Saiful Alam and his wife. 

The order, which was passed on May 19, came following a formal request submitted by Bangladeshi authorities through mutual legal assistance procedures as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into alleged bank fraud, unlawful asset accumulation, and massive money laundering. 

The request to the court was spearheaded by Cyprus’s anti-money laundering unit, Mokas, as reported by the Cyprus Mail.

Saiful Alam, the founder and chairman of the S Alam Group, has firmly denied any wrongdoing in connection with the allegations. 

Through his legal representation with the prominent international law firm Quinn Emanuel, he has stated that his investments were funded through entirely legitimate foreign sources and that the legal actions taken against him are completely unjustified. 

Furthermore, he has initiated proceedings before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, arguing that the restrictive measures affecting his assets, including those subject to these freezing orders, violate international investment protection agreements.

According to documents transmitted to the Cypriot authorities, investigators in Bangladesh are closely examining a complex network of companies and financial transactions spanning fifteen years between 2009 and 2024. 

The state request alleges that various companies linked directly to Saiful Alam secured substantial, high-value loans from a number of major financial institutions, including Islami Bank Bangladesh PLC and First Security Islami Bank. 

The state files indicate that many of those loans later defaulted, prompting investigators to track whether the funds obtained through those banking facilities were unlawfully transferred abroad through a web of financial structures operating across multiple jurisdictions.

The scale of the alleged financial crime is unprecedented, with Bangladesh’s central bank governor publicly describing the case as involving more than Euro 8 billion that was allegedly siphoned out of the country. 

Bangladeshi authorities believe that substantial assets connected to this sprawling investigation are hidden globally, locating points of interest in Cyprus, Singapore, and other jurisdictions. 

A specific arm of the current inquiry concerns ACLARE International, a Cyprus-registered company that Saiful Alam acquired in 2016 following his purchase of ACLARE Investment Ltd. 

Investigators are seeking to determine if this entity was used to facilitate transactions linked to the movement of the under-investigation funds.

Court filings in Cyprus also reference a broader network of interconnected companies and trusts operating out of Cyprus, the British Virgin Islands, and Jersey, with investigators actively working to map out the true ownership structures and underlying financial activities. 

Saiful Alam originally acquired his Cypriot citizenship in 2016 through the island's controversial citizen-by-investment programme, colloquially known as the “golden passports scheme,” which has since been terminated by the Cyprus government. 

Notably, the S Alam Group owner does not appear in the findings of the Nikolatos Committee report, which previously examined the legal operations and past mismanagement of the citizenship programme.

With Inputs from UNB