Bangladesh wants M'sia to extradite Bestinet founder, associate

Bangladesh police have called on Malaysia to arrest and extradite Bestinet founder Aminul Islam Abdul Nor and his associate Ruhul Amin, allegedly on charges of money laundering, extortion and trafficking of migrant workers.

Aminul was the founding chairperson of Bestinet, the company which runs the controversial and lucrative Foreign Worker Central Management System (FWCMS), which the Malaysian government used to process the entry of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers.

Aminul, a Bangladesh-born naturalised Malaysian, is no longer serving as chairperson but still holds shares in the company.

Ruhul, a Bangladeshi national, runs Catharsis International, a Bangladeshi firm also involved in migrant worker management.

The duo are accused of playing key roles in a system which “fraudulently extorted money from the victims” and exposed them to “physical and mental torture”, according to a letter dated Oct 24 sent from Bangladesh’s branch of Interpol to its Malaysian counterpart, which was sighted by Bloomberg.

Bangladesh police officer Ashiqur Rahman, who is part of the country’s Interpol branch, confirmed the letter’s veracity, the news agency reported.

Ashiqur said Malaysian authorities replied to the letter requesting the Bangladesh police to submit a formal extradition request.

Those documents are underway, he added.

The Bangladeshi police’s request is part of a wider investigation into middlepersons and lawmakers involved in sending workers from Bangladesh to Malaysia, Bloomberg reported.

In September, Aminul and Ruhul were accused of money laundering in an exposé by Bangladeshi news site Prothom Alo.

At the time, when contacted by Malaysiakini, Bestinet denied the allegations while Ruhul told Prothom Alo he did not do anything illegal.

Aminul did not respond to requests for comment.

The MACC also cleared Bestinet of the allegations.

On Oct 17, Tengku Muda of Pahang Tengku Abdul Rahman Sultan Ahmad Shah resigned from his position as a director of Bestinet, 16 months after assuming the role last June.

Red-flagged by PAC

The company came under the spotlight after it was found operating the lucrative system without a proper agreement with the government.

Migrant workers must go through FWCMS to enter Malaysia, and Bestinet collects a processing fee of RM100 from each worker.

According to its 2022 accounts, tabled to the Companies Commission in June last year, Bestinet retained earnings of RM128 million and made RM85 million in profits out of RM138.92 million in revenue for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2022.

However, in July, the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found that despite making a lot of money from the FWCMS, there was no contract signed between the government and Bestinet.

There was, however, a letter of acceptance for the development of the FWCMS system on Jan 12, 2018.

“This means that the government/Home Ministry used the FWCMS system for approximately six years without a finalised contract, clearly violating government regulations,” the PAC said in a statement.

In June, the cabinet agreed to extend Bestinet’s contract for another three years, but with improvements in governance.

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