Desk Report,
Case filed against Flight Expert for embezzling crores of taka, three officials arrested
A case has been filed against Flight Expert, one of the country’s leading online flight ticket booking platforms, for allegedly embezzling crores of taka from customers. Police have arrested three Flight Expert officials in this incident.
Case filed against Flight Expert for embezzling crores of taka, three officials arrested
The three arrested are the agency’s Head of Finance Shakib Hossain (32), Chief Commercial Officer Sayeed Ahmed (40) and Chief Operating Officer AKM Sadat Hossain (32).
Motijheel Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Mejbah Uddin told Prothom Alo on Sunday afternoon that a customer named Bipul Sarkar filed the case with Motijheel Police Station on Saturday night. Five people have been named as accused in it. The remaining two accused are Flight Expert’s Managing Director (MD) Salman Bin Rashid Shah Sayeem and his father MA Rashid. The OC said that efforts are underway to arrest the remaining accused.
According to police sources, 17 victim agencies have reported the amount of their financial losses. Initially, the financial loss of 17 companies was reported to be 47.9 million taka.
Flight Expert suddenly closed yesterday evening. Ticket selling agencies and thousands of customers suffered due to this. They had paid for advance ticket bookings.
Several Flight Expert officials alleged that the owners have closed the company and left the country. This has left customers and suppliers facing uncertainty about getting crores of taka back.
When I visited Flight Expert’s office in Motijheel in the capital yesterday evening, I saw that many people had gathered there. Many of them were representatives of various supplier companies and ticket selling agencies, who wanted to know what would happen to the tickets they had purchased. But most of them were disappointed when they went to the office.
Flight Expert officially started its journey in March 2017. They provided various services such as ticket booking for various domestic and foreign airlines, hotel reservations (room reservations), tour packages and visa processing. The platform became popular especially due to the convenience of easy ticket booking at low cost.
Multiple sources said that Flight Expert used to collect tickets through two intermediary agencies instead of directly purchasing tickets from the airline companies. Many have also alleged that these two agencies are now withdrawing money by refunding the tickets they purchased. Prothom Alo obtained a screenshot of a message from Managing Director (MD) Salman bin Rashid in an internal Facebook group of Flight Expert. In it, he claimed that two officials of his company had betrayed him. He is closing the company and leaving the country to protect himself from threats and slander.
When contacted on WhatsApp, Flight Expert Managing Director Salman bin Rashid denied the allegations of absconding with the money.
