Corruotion in Rupali Life Insurance (part-2): How former AL MP Mahfuzur Rahman Mita orchestrated Tk 160 cr corporate fraud
Special Correspondent
The ongoing collapse of Rupali Life Insurance PLC stands as a textbook case of how political power can be weaponized to hollow out a financial institution.
Following the revelation of Tk 120 crore in phantom assets and Tk 44 crore in missing bank funds detailed in part -1 , the second part of this investigation uncovers a highly deceptive framework of premium siphoning and unexplained cash hoarding, orchestrated under the direct influence of the company's original owner and former Chairman, Mahfuzur Rahman Mita, the former Awami League MP from Sandwip.
The investigation has revealed a highly deceptive use of the "Agent Balance" account category to siphon funds away from ordinary citizens. While field-level policyholders from rural and urban sectors dutifully paid their hard-earned premiums to authorized agents, a significant portion of these funds reportedly pocketed the cash instead of depositing it into the central corporate treasury.
Instead of writing off or aggressively recovering these defaults, Rupali Life’s management continuously listed these unrecovered dues as active corporate assets under "Agent Balance" for seven consecutive years. Between 2017 and 2024, a total of Tk 24.94 crore was left hanging in this category—specifically Tk 7.72 crore in 2017, Tk 4.98 cr in 2018, Tk 4.46 crore in 2019, Tk 3.69 cr in 2020, and Tk 4.08 cr in 2021.
Treating uncollectible revenue as a profitable asset to justify director payouts constitutes blatant corporate fraud. Financial observers note that this calculated negligence thrived because institutional regulatory bodies were systematically bypassed by the Chairman's political network.
Simultaneously, the company's "Cash in Hand" records present another deep mystery that hints at direct embezzlement. In 2016, the company reported a standard cash reserve of Tk 9.39 crore at its central and branch offices.
Without any institutional or commercial justification, this figure was artificially inflated year after year, peaking at an uncharacteristically high Tk 16.45 crore.
Senior accountants point out that keeping such a massive volume of idle cash in physical vaults or in hand—rather than directing it into interest-yielding investments—defies basic financial logic.
The financial report fails to explain exactly who holds this cash or where it is secured, raising strong suspicions among experts that the "Cash in Hand" sector was used as a dummy account to cover up direct fund diversion or cash-looting for political patronage during elections.
The extensive corruption tied to Mahfuzur Rahman Mita has left thousands of ordinary policyholders facing the grim reality of never recovering their maturity claims.
For years, Mita used his position as an MP to silence internal auditors and keep regulatory bodies like the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA) at bay.
When reached for comment regarding these extensive audit irregularities and the toxic legacy of political corruption affecting the company's life fund, the Managing Director of Rupali Life Insurance, Md. Golam Kibria, did not answer his phone.
He also failed to respond to detailed text messages prior to the publication of this report. With the central fund effectively empty, the future of Rupali Life’s policyholders now hangs entirely by a thread.
