When Bangladeshi police raided the home of Hussein Mohammed Ershad - the suave general who for nine years ruled this destitute country with the help of billions of dollars in Western aid - they found, among other items, $500,000 in cash hidden in trunks, 40 bottles of Chanel cologne for men, 134 neckties, 62 bottles of Scotch whisky, golf clubs, a big-screen television and a silver tea set studded with emeralds.
In the year since the raid, this newly democratic government's attorney general - equipped with a lone photocopier and little else but a sense of outrage - has undertaken a seemingly quixotic quest to track down what he alleges are the theft and smuggling abroad of several hundred million dollars in aid and commercial funds by Ershad, his family and associates.The alleged looting occurred at the expense of one of the world's poorest countries, in which the per-capita income is $14 a month, several million children die annually from malnutrition, and floods regularly claim thousands of lives.
So far, the attorney general's sleuthing has turned up many bizarre tales of Ershad's tangled affairs with two wives and an estimated 18 mistresses, evidence of widespread official corruption during his reign and a twisting trail of front companies and international bank accounts that has left investigators scratching their heads in frustration.
Bangladeshi investigators and private detectives in the United States said they believe that before Ershad was toppled by a democratic revolt last December, he and his associates used stolen funds to buy properties in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Middle East, Britain and the United States. But because of the complexity of the deals, a severe lack of resources and domestic political constraints, some investigators in Bangladesh doubt they will ever be able to recover the funds.
"We are trying, but in Bangladesh we do not have the skills to catch this kind of money laundering," said Aminul Huq, the Bangladeshi attorney general, a gaunt man who does much of his work out of a room in his house filled with tattered cloth files.
One consolation for Huq and other officials is that Ershad is in jail and is unlikely to get out anytime soon. The toppled general already has been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on a weapons charge stemming from his possession of unregistered pistols that Ershad said were gifts from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
A second trial related to the $500,000 found in Ershad's home has just been completed, although no verdict has been rendered. Next, prosecutors plan to try Ershad and his wife on charges they swindled prime Dhaka real estate from displaced poor and used about $2.5 million in ill-gotten funds to erect an office building.
After that, prosecutors can choose from pending charges that Ershad and his associates arranged for kickbacks while buying ships from Pakistan, planes from Singapore and Britain, rice from Thailand, speedboats from Japan and U.S.-made radar from a company registered in the Bahamas.
Ershad, incarcerated in a two-room cell in the Dhaka central jail that has a sofa set, an adjoining bathroom, a kitchen, a cook and a waiter, insists he is innocent in all these cases.
The general's political supporters remain a factor in the country's divided polity, and the traders with whom he allegedly did business continue to dominate what little there is of Bangladesh's economy. This leads some investigators to fear that their future prosecutions may be constrained for political reasons.
What especially frustrates the attorney general is his failure so far to retrieve any money allegedly smuggled overseas. A number of Ershad's relatives and alleged former business associates are said by government officials to be living comfortably in the United States, Europe and prosperous Asian countries.
Among other things, Dhaka's investigation has been hampered by the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which the attorney general and other investigators believe was a major conduit of Ershad's financial dealings. Without law firms or accountants pressing its cause, Bangladesh stands at the back of a long line of creditors and prosecutors sifting BCCI's wreckage for clues to suspected crimes.
The probe also has been affected by a legal move made by the U.S. State Department at Ershad's request in April 1990, eight months before the general was thrown out of office. The United States, which generally supported Ershad during his time in power, recommended that a New York judge quash a divorce proceeding brought against the general by Murieum Mumtaz, who claims to be Ershad's longtime mistress and secret second wife. The State Department contended that as the head of a foreign government, Ershad was entitled to immunity from the divorce suit.