Staff Correspondent

A Dhaka court on Sunday sent three officials of online airline ticketing platform ‘Flight Expert’ to jail in connection with a case filed over embezzlement of customers’ funds.

The accused are Sakib Hossain, 32, Head of Finance; Sayed Ahmed, 40, Chief Commercial Officer; and AKM Sadat Hossain, 32, Chief Operating Officer of the company.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Minhazur Rahman passed the order after rejecting their bail petitions.

During the hearing, the court said embezzling an amount a large as Tk 5,000–6,000 crore could not have occurred overnight.

They have been serving in the organisation for a long time and it is not possible to suddenly misappropriate such a huge amount, the court observed.

On behalf of the accused, lawyer Afzal Hossain Mridha said that the three were mere employees and had no direct involvement in the embezzlement.

"They are actually victims. The owner has fled, and they have been arrested simply because they worked for the company," he said adding that there are no specific allegations directly linking them to the financial misconduct.

Earlier, police arrested them on Saturday.

A customer named Bipul Sarkar filed a case with Motijheel Police accusing five people.

In addition to the three arrested officials—the case also names Flight Expert's Managing Director Salman Bin Rashid Shah Saim and his father MA Rashid.

The two remain at large.

According to case documents, Flight Expert abruptly stopped operations on Saturday evening, leaving thousands of customers and ticket-selling agencies in limbo.

Many had made advance payments for air tickets, tour packages, and other services and the shutdown has raised serious concerns about the recovery of crores of taka in customer funds.

Several employees of the company have claimed that the owners closed the business without warning and fled the country, further deepening the crisis.

Plaintiff Bipul Sarkar alleged in the case that Tk 4.79 crore was embezzled from the customers through fraudulent means.

Founded in March 2017, Flight Expert quickly got popularity by offering convenient and low-cost services such as airline ticket booking, hotel reservations, visa assistance, and tour packages for both domestic and international travel.