One of the most controversial figures in Bangladesh’s banking sector and capital markets over the past 15 years is Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat — a reputation forged by abuse of power, political influence and institutional collusion. Investigations by multiple agencies, court cases and media reports have shown how he and his associates funnelled tens of billions of taka through banks, mutual funds and other capital market entities in a web of financial irregularities. The dealings centred on the former Farmers Bank, now named Padma Bank, and the asset manager RACE Asset Management have inflicted lasting damage on the country’s financial sector.
After the political transition of August 2024, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit, the police Criminal Investigation Department and the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission opened inquiries and investigations into Sarafat, his associates and their businesses. They filed multiple cases, seized assets and froze bank accounts. Yet Sarafat has not been convicted in any case. On the contrary, several people familiar with the matter say he has recently been working to rebuild his influence over the financial sector.
Sarafat, a former Standard Chartered Bank officer, secured a licence from the BSEC in 2008 for the asset management company RACE Management PCL, now RACE Asset Management. His partner was Dr Hasan Taher Imam. This launched Sarafat’s ascent in finance. By 2013, RACE was managing 10 closed-end mutual funds; it now manages 13.
Investigators and sources allege that money from these mutual funds was used for private benefit to buy shares in Farmers Bank (now Padma Bank). The purchases gave Sarafat and Dr Imam seats on the bank’s board of directors. Sarafat’s wife, Anjuman Ara Shahid, also served as a sponsor director of the bank. The mutual funds themselves reaped no significant financial gain from the investment.
When then-chairman of the bank and former home minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir resigned after the financial scandals came to light, Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat took the chairmanship of Farmers Bank. The lender was later renamed Padma Bank. To keep it afloat, the state-owned Investment Corporation of Bangladesh and four state-owned banks — Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali — injected BDT 7.15 billion in fresh capital.
The board was restructured, the name changed, and a range of policy support was extended. None of it produced a turnaround. Over the past eight years, the bank has racked up a net loss of nearly BDT 60.99 billion. Around BDT 22 billion in deposits from 43 government entities remain trapped in the bank. Against this backdrop, Sarafat resigned as chairman on January 31, 2024, citing health issues.
At RACE Asset Management, Sarafat owns 25 percent and Dr Hasan Taher Imam 75 percent. A dispute over ownership and control between the two parties dragged on for years and reached the courts. In 2024, the BSEC began an investigation into the mutual funds managed by RACE, but it stalled amid legal complications. The commission, restructured under the former interim government, also failed to take any visible action. The former interim government imposed fines on several entities totalling roughly BDT 15 billion for capital-market irregularities committed over the past decade and a half. Neither Sarafat nor RACE featured among those penalised.
Asked about this, BSEC Executive Director and Spokesperson Md Abul Kalam told Bonik Barta: “In the Best Holdings matter, the commission’s enforcement division summoned Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat and Dr Hasan Taher Imam for a hearing. They obtained a stay order from the High Court and didn’t appear. The Appellate Division recently vacated the stay and ruled in the commission’s favour. We have now moved to hold the hearing again. Once it concludes, the commission will take whatever steps are required according to the law.”
Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat built his influence over the financial sector incrementally, leveraging his personal closeness to now-ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina and his ties to influential officials and policymakers at multiple levels of the government. Contemporaries say he wielded significant sway inside regulatory bodies and policy circles, which he used to secure a succession of business and financial advantages.
Multiple sources say Sarafat addressed the deposed prime minister as “aunt” in private and introduced former Inspector General of Police Benazir Ahmed as his “cousin”. He also cultivated close relationships with bankers, business figures and policymakers.
Sources claimed he was on excellent terms with many of the Awami League era’s powerful figures, including Salman F Rahman, private industry and investment adviser to the ousted AL government; Nazrul Islam Mazumder, former chairman of EXIM Bank; former finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal; and former Bangladesh Bank governor Abdur Rauf Talukder. Sarafat is alleged to have benefited from these connections when financial decisions were taken.
According to sources, Sarafat tried to list Best Holdings on the stock market via direct listing, with AHM Mustafa Kamal’s backing. That effort failed. The company eventually listed during the tenure of former BSEC chairman Professor Shibli Rubayat Ul Islam.
In February 2025, a court ordered 74 bank accounts of Sarafat and his family frozen after the Anti-Corruption Commission alleged that the family had embezzled BDT 8.87 billion from the banking and capital market. He also faces two separate cases: one for attempting to defraud Padma Bank of a BDT 50 million loan, and another for embezzling BDT 710 million through abuse of power and violations of Rajuk rules linked to the relocation of the bank’s head office.
Anti-Corruption Commission investigations have traced investments by Sarafat and his family across 52 entities — some held in their own names, others through front and shell companies. To prevent him from disposing of assets, a court ordered his bank accounts frozen, together with those of his wife and children. It also attached a 20-storey building in Gulshan, 18 flats in Dhaka and Gazipur, plots and land in Purbachal, and a flat and villa in Dubai. Despite these measures, no court has yet convicted him in any case.
ACC Secretary Mohammad Khaled Rahim told Bonik Barta: “The ACC takes the necessary legal steps through investigation. But punishment depends entirely on the judicial process.”
The Criminal Investigation Department is separately pursuing the financial crime allegations against Sarafat. Early in 2024, the CID began an inquiry into embezzlement and money laundering by Dr Hasan Taher Imam, then managing director and chief executive of RACE Asset Management. That June, the investigating officer — then Additional Special Superintendent of Police Jewel Chakma, who has since been dismissed — submitted an 85-page report to the court based on claims that investors in several mutual funds were harmed through Multi Securities Limited.
After the political transition of 2024, the CID launched a fresh money-laundering probe into Sarafat, his family members and his associates. It concluded by filing charges on November 28, 2025 against Sarafat, his wife, son, and Dr Imam for laundering BDT 16.13 billion. The CID says it has found preliminary evidence of forgery, the use of fake bank and beneficiary-owner accounts, asset accumulation through various entities, and money laundering. The case remains under investigation.
Investigating officers say that under the ousted Awami League government, Sarafat became one of the financial sector’s most influential operators by exploiting political connections and misusing mutual fund money. His ascent began after RACE Asset Management secured its licence from the BSEC on September 24, 2008, with Dr Imam as its managing director and CEO. Allegations later emerged that Sarafat used mutual fund money to invest in a string of entities and siphoned funds abroad. Initially concealed, those allegations gradually came to light after 2017.
Multiple CID officers claim that during investigation into the RACE Asset Management in early 2024, Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat tried to shift his own liability onto Dr Hasan Taher Imam. To that end, he made large payments to the CID’s then-chief Mohammad Ali and the investigating officer Jewel Chakma. A report was then submitted exonerating Sarafat and incriminating Dr Imam. Chakma and Ali were later dismissed for corruption and gross misconduct. The CID’s Financial Crime Unit subsequently reopened the inquiry into Sarafat. That round of investigation uncovered evidence of money laundering by him and his family members, leading to a case that is now under active investigation.
“The investigation found preliminary evidence of money laundering against Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat, his wife Anjuman Ara Shahid, his son Rahib Safwan Sarafat Chowdhury and his associate Dr Hasan Taher Imam,” Md Bashir Uddin, the additional deputy inspector general of the CID’s Financial Crime Unit, told Bonik Barta. “A case has been filed under the Money Laundering Prevention Act. It’s now under investigation.”
Contemporaries say that during Sheikh Hasina’s long rule, Sarafat influenced critical decisions in the banking sector. He is alleged to have wielded informal sway over the appointment of chairmen and managing directors of state-owned banks, the approval of large loans and a range of policy decisions. Several officials claim he even played an active role in the selection of a Bangladesh Bank deputy governor.
Sarafat is also accused of attempting to use an ACC investigation to force former Southeast Bank chairmen MA Kashem and Azim Uddin Ahmed off the board. He subsequently installed his wife, Anjuman Ara Shahid, as a director of the bank and pushed to make his son Rahib Sarafat a director as well. The son’s appointment fell through because he lacked the requisite qualifications and experience.
Bangladesh Bank Executive Director and Spokesperson Arif Hossain Khan told Bonik Barta: “Bangladesh Bank remains vigilant regarding individuals and groups involved in banking irregularities. Various efforts to revive Padma Bank in the past didn’t succeed. The central bank is determined to take the necessary action against any person or entity that has damaged the banking sector.”
Sarafat is also accused of securing an irregular plot allocation in the Rajuk Purbachal New Town project for his Canadian University of Bangladesh. The allotment was allegedly pushed through using political and administrative influence. Former IGP Benazir Ahmed was also associated with the university.
Recently, 29 law students from the Canadian University of Bangladesh joined Prime Minister Tarique Rahman for lunch at the National Parliament building’s VIP cafeteria, alongside students from several other institutions. The university’s trustee board is now chaired in an acting capacity by Sarafat’s brother, Chowdhury Jafarullah Sharafat. The attendance of students from a relatively obscure and controversial university at the event has drawn comment in various quarters.
After the political transition of 2024, a succession of irregularities involving Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat in banking, capital markets and mutual funds began to surface. Authorities responded by freezing his bank accounts, seizing assets and imposing a travel ban. Yet no trial against him has concluded and he has not been convicted in any case.
Multiple people say Sarafat’s influence persists because a segment of his old administrative and financial network remains active. They say he is using substantial financial resources, litigation and contacts at multiple levels to shield himself from legal jeopardy. At the same time, he is working through diaspora groups in the United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore and the United States — groups that retain access to influential circles in the current government — to extend his reach. A former Standard Chartered colleague who now holds the rank of state minister and leads a key government body is also assisting him, sources claim. Sarafat is further leveraging several ruling-party politicians to re-enter the financial sector, seeking to establish himself as a middleman for loan restructuring and the turnaround of loss-making enterprises.
Chowdhury Nafeez Sarafat could not be reached for comment. His Bangladeshi contact number remains active on WhatsApp, but he did not respond.