1,400 taka a month per lakh, two and a half crore taken in, and the secretary gone

In 2015 a group of people set up a savings and credit cooperative society in the C&B Bazar area of Bagerhat Sadar, took an office in a building at the market and began accepting daily, monthly and lump-sum investments. On a promise of 1,400 taka a month per lakh, about 2.5 crore taka came in from local people, of which roughly 70 lakh was out with borrowers as loans. One investor said he had put 15 lakh taka into the society on those terms. From 19 April 2022 the society's general secretary disappeared with his wife and daughter; locals believed he had left the country. Angry depositors and elected representatives padlocked the society's office and its two associated businesses; the owner of the building had 10 lakh of his own and 8 lakh of two friends' money tied up in it. The society's president said he had an NGO job and did not run the society, only signed papers - but it was still he who had to face the depositors.