The receipts were real, the deposits were not: an outlet locked and abandoned

An agent banking outlet of a private bank at Algi bazaar in Raipura upazila, Narsingdi, was run by a local operator. Trusting the bank's name, many people placed fixed deposits at the outlet and were given deposit receipts for them. Their complaint is that he never passed the money to the main branch: he took at least 10 crore taka, locked the outlet and left on 21 January 2024. The next day customers went to another branch, could not find the money in their own online accounts, and broke down - one had 15.9 lakh taka sent by a husband working abroad, another had a 7 lakh deposit and about 50,000 in a current account, and another had 40 lakh. One customer said he had put in 5 lakh taka raised by selling cattle and had no idea where to go for it. The bank was preparing a general diary and a case, and while the police had begun a shadow investigation, no written complaint had reached them at that point.