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Marketers of greed reign supreme

Saradur Rahman
Star finds many multilevel companies not making headlines, silently swindling fortune-seekers before vanishing abruptly
Shady multilevel marketing (MLM) companies are cheating people across the country by offering them double return on deposits in less than a year, high monthly returns and huge profits from product sales.
These companies rent top-class office rooms and create eye-catching websites to lure people into their traps, and then vanish after swin-
dling people out of crores of taka.
Weeks after Destiny-2000 and Unipay2u became the focus of public attention for their alleged financial fraud, there have been allegations that MLM companies FALGUNIINT and Revnexx tricked people out of several hundred crores of taka in just a year. Both companies vanished within a year of their operation.
Imran Hossain last year deposited Tk 20 lakh in several instalments with
FALGUNI INT (Falguni Trade International), which had promised to give him double returns on his deposit in just 10 months. But he found the company's office shut before his deposit could mature.
Like Imran, Farhad Hossain, Reshma Akhter and Shariful Alam were deceived by the same MLM Company.
Abdullah Masud, the founder and managing director of FALGUNI INT, adopted a new strategy to cheat people. He formed a food and beverage company and also set up a factory. He sold financial packages with promises of a double return on investments in 10 months.
He also sold his food company's dealerships for Tk 4-5 lakh each and pocketed nearly Tk 10 crore from around 200 people.
Masud rented an 8,000 square-foot office at DH Tower at Panthapath and created a website branding FALGUNI INT as a leading industrial conglomerate in Bangladesh.
Posted on the website was the message that FALGUNI INT had assumed a leadership role in food and beverages, cosmetics and toiletries, infrastructure development, power, high-tech agro products, automobiles and IT sectors.
“He [Masud] has cheated a lot of people. Most projects mentioned on the website are false and meant to deceive people,” said Atiqur Rahman, who was director (production) of Falguni Food and Beverage.
He along with the company's deputy managing director resigned when they came to know that Masud had been cheating people.
The workers of the factory did not even get their salaries, saidAtiq.
When The Daily Star managed to contact Masud over the phone after several days' attempt, Masud said he had shut the office as there was no government policy on MLM business. The developments relating to Destiny had also led him to make the decision.
He admitted that 20,000 people were made members of FALGUNI INT and he had sold a financial package of Tk 21,000 to each member.
“I did not take money from all members. My rivals are saying this." Masud claimed that he had paid back many of the members.
Interestingly, Masud claimed that he had been cheated by another MLM company, Revnexx, last year. He had invested more than Tk 50 lakh in that company
that vanished in less than one year of operation, he said.
In a tone of regret, Masud said, “MLM is here only to cheat people. Influential people are often hired to show off the business to people."
“It is not possible to give a double return on a deposit within the time frame mentioned by MLM companies," he said.
Revnexx took a more aggressive approach than other MLM companies. It held out the assurance that if anyone made an investment in the company, the amount would double in just six months.
Thousands of poor and low-income people fell in the trap of Revnexx, which had rented an office at Banani in the capital.
Harisa Parveen, a kindergarten teacher in Joydevpur, said, “I deposited Tk 73,000, most of which I had borrowed, in October last year with the MLM company that promised me a double return on deposits in six months. I received only one instalment of Tk 21,000 from the company.”
She found the Revnexx office closed after a few months.
Like her, Rowshan Ara, Abdul Halim Khan, Taslima Begum, Shafiqul Islam Khan, Ziaur Rahman, and Lutfar Rahman lost money to the MLM company that existed for less than a year.
The main culprits — Pintu Biswas and Rony of Revnexx -- have been on the run after swindling people out of Tk 150-200 crore, according to aggrieved investors.
Global Guardian Network (GGN) introduced MLM business in Bangladesh in 1998. Later, some GGN high-ups, including Rafiqul Amin, left the organisation and formed Destiny in 2000. Destiny's exponential growth encouraged many vested quarters to get involved in MLM business.
According to the office of Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms, 70 MLM companies have been registered with it, but no new companies were given permission to run MLM business in the last one year.
Wishing anonymity, a
high-up of the office said the absence of law and policies gave vested quarters the opportunity to cheat people in the name of MLM business.