Cyprus Freezes Bangladeshi Tycoon’s Property as Golden Passport Legacy Returns
Bosphorus News Economy Desk
A court in Cyprus has frozen a two-storey residential property in Parekklisia linked to Bangladeshi businessman Mohammed Saiful Alam and his wife, after a request from Bangladeshi authorities investigating alleged bank fraud and money laundering.
The Nicosia District Court issued the order on 19 May following an application by Cyprus's Unit for Combating Money Laundering, known as Mokas, under mutual legal assistance procedures initiated by Dhaka.
Alam, founder and chairman of S Alam Group, one of Bangladesh's largest conglomerates, denies wrongdoing.
Bangladesh's central bank governor has described the wider case as involving alleged outflows of more than €8 billion. The figure has not been tested in a Cyprus court. The order in Nicosia concerns a specific property while Bangladeshi authorities pursue asset recovery abroad.
The Cyprus link gives the case a broader weight. Alam acquired Cypriot citizenship in 2016 through the island's now-closed citizenship-by-investment programme, widely known as the golden passport scheme.
What the Investigation Covers
Bangladeshi investigators are examining allegations that companies linked to Alam secured large loans from several financial institutions between 2009 and 2024, including Islami Bank Bangladesh and First Security Islami Bank.
According to documents submitted to Cypriot authorities, many of those loans later defaulted. Investigators allege that funds were moved abroad through companies and financial structures across Cyprus, the British Virgin Islands, Singapore and Jersey.
One focus is ACLARE International, a Cyprus-registered company acquired by Alam in 2016. Authorities are examining whether the company was connected to transactions under scrutiny. Court filings also refer to a wider network of companies and trusts across several jurisdictions.
A separate case has also moved forward in Bangladesh. The day after the Cyprus freezing order, a Bangladeshi court sentenced Alam and several relatives and associates to five months in prison in a case involving a loan of about €6 million granted by Islami Bank to a subsidiary of his group. Bangladeshi media reported that the loan was linked to the planned purchase of 134 buses that were never acquired.
The Cyprus Passport Connection
The case reaches into one of Cyprus's most damaging financial scandals.
Cyprus closed its citizenship-by-investment programme at the end of 2020 after pressure from the European Union and the Al Jazeera "Cyprus Papers" investigation, which exposed how passports had been granted to politically exposed figures and individuals facing serious allegations abroad.
A later inquiry found deep irregularities. European Parliament research has cited the Nicolatou Committee's findings that 6,779 investment naturalisations were granted between 2007 and 2020, with 53.24% found to have been granted unlawfully.
The Alam case shows why that history has not disappeared. A passport issued in 2016, a property in Parekklisia and a Cyprus-registered company are now part of an international asset-tracing effort linked to a Bangladeshi financial crime investigation.
Alam later surrendered his Bangladeshi passport in October 2022 and obtained Singaporean citizenship in 2023. His legal representatives at Quinn Emanuel have said his investments were funded through legitimate foreign sources and that the actions against him are unjustified.
He has also launched arbitration proceedings against Bangladesh at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, arguing that measures affecting his assets violate international investment protections.
Cyprus Faces a Compliance Test
The freezing order is part of a broader asset recovery campaign by Bangladeshi authorities.
Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission has separately said it is investigating alleged laundering of billions of dollars abroad, including through Singapore, where a company called Canali Logistics was allegedly established using laundered funds.
Cyprus now faces the other side of its old financial model. The island attracted foreign wealth through property purchases, corporate structures and investment-linked citizenship. Some of those files are now returning through court orders, official registries and anti-money laundering channels.
Nicosia can point to the Mokas application and the court order as evidence of cooperation with foreign investigators. That matters for a country still trying to repair the damage left by the passport scheme.
The harder question is what else remains in the system. The Alam case brings together the same ingredients that made the golden passport era so controversial: foreign capital, property, citizenship, company structures and weak due diligence. Cyprus has closed the programme, but cases like this show that its legal and financial afterlife is still active.
***Source: Somoy News