DHAKA, Aug 1: Bangladesh’s anti-graft agency has charged a former army chief and war hero with stealing $400 million from nearly two million investors through alleged Ponzi schemes, police said on Wednesday.

The agency accuses retired Lieutenant General Harunur Rashid, the president of Destiny Group, and 21 other senior officials of the group of stealing the money from two projects set up by the direct-selling company between 2006 and this April.

“In total, they embezzled 32.8 billion taka ($402 million),” police inspector Shariful Islam said, quoting from the case records.

A Ponzi scheme is an illegal investment scheme that involves paying returns to investors out of money paid in by later investors, rather than from revenues generated by any real business transactions.

The Destiny Group allegedly collected 23.35 billion taka ($286 million) for a tree harvesting project, Islam said.—AFP