Obaidul Karim, the founder and chairman of Orion Group, has allegedly built a vast empire of wealth in Dubai through fraud, forgery and smuggling of millions of dollars from Bangladesh.
He earned this money through various misdemeanors including fraud, cheating, money embezzlement and ensnaring Dubai's contractor company Belhasa.
The embezzled money was laundered into Dubai, where Karim invested in luxury hotels, flats, houses, and land in elite area.
Larned that none of the assets in Dubai in Obaidul Karim's name were purchased using his Bangladeshi passport.
Obaidul Karim identified himself as an Albanian citizen in the registration documents for the purchase of a four-star hotel in Dubai.
Records from the Albanian corporate registry reveal his ownership of Agri Products Europe, established in Tirana on 11 November 2013.
Through Albania's Golden Passport scheme, he received citizenship by 2023 in exchange for investments.
Similarly, Cyprus granted him citizenship under its investment program, necessitating a €200,000 contribution to research and land development funds and a €2 million investment in Cypriot real estate.
Meanwhile, Orion Pharma Limited had a 30 percent stake in a pharmaceutical company in Bahrain. Obaidul Karim and his son Salman were board members of the company.
However, while Salman refers to himself as a Bangladeshi, Obaidul Karim refers to himself as an Indian citizen. The company was established on January 6, 2015.
Obaidul Karim's daughter, Jarin Karim owns the UAE-based company Jesha General Trading LLC, where she refers to himself as a Dominican Republic citizen.
Obaidul Karim and his wife Arjuda Karim also hold Dominican passports issued on 14 November 2022.
Their daughter Jarin Karim was appointed Honorary Consul of Dominica to Bangladesh in 2024 and she is still in this position. Jarin Karim also invested $200,000 dollars in the real estate sector of the Dominican Republic to obtain citizenship.
Meanwhile, Obaidul Karim has a 49 percent share in the ownership of a four-star hotel named 'Palette Royal Reflection Hotel and Spa' in Dubai. Built in 2014, this 100-room hotel is located in Dubai's elite area of Bar Dubai.
Apart from this, Obaidul Karim, his wife Arjuda Karim and daughter Jarin own two houses and a three-bedroom flat in Dubai's Al Merkadh and World Trade Center Residences.
In total, Obaidul Karim and his family members have immovable assets worth Tk 700 crore and movable assets including luxury cars worth about Tk 300 crore in Dubai.
Obaidul Karim built this huge property in Dubai by smuggling thousands of crores of taka from Bangladesh through fraud, forgery and embezzlement.
During the construction of the 41-storey City Centre in Motijheel, he forged the signatures of Belhasa Group’s Managing Director Majed Ahmed to secure loans worth at least Tk 176 core from a bank.
Even though Obaidul Karim took a loan through fraud, Belhasa's name came up in the list of defaulters. But no one in Belhasa knew that Obaidul Karim had taken this huge loan in the name of their company.
Although Belhasa Engineering and Contracting Company has 60 percent shares in that 41-storey city center, Obaidul Karim alone secretly sold 22 floors and embezzled about Tk 450 crores and smuggled them abroad without the knowledge of the shareholders.
Additionally, during the construction of the Jatrabari-Gulistan flyover, Karim falsified company documents, removing Belhasa’s representative and forming a new entity through complete fraud.
Zubair Ahmed Bhuiyan, an authorized representative of Majed Ahmed, managing director of Belhasa Engineering and Contracting Company, filed a case in the district judge court of Dhaka in this incident.
According to the statement of the case, Obaidul Karim created a new company by forging the signature and excluding the representative of Belhasa group. It is also alleged that Obaidul Karim embezzled Tk 500 crore invested by Belhasa.
Obaidul, his son Salman Karim, son-in-law Mehdi Hasan were accused in the case. The then Mayor of Dhaka City Corporation, Registrar of Joint Stock Company, Chairman of Securities Exchange Commission and Secretary of Dhaka Stock Exchange were made defendants.
Obaidul Karim is accused of laundering the entirety of the embezzled funds abroad, engaging in extensive corruption and malpractice.
*This report, originally published in the Khaborer Kagoj print and online edition, has been rewritten in English by Md Sahadad Hossain
