The former CEO and chairman of Evaly, a popular e-commerce platform in Bangladesh, have been issued arrest warrants by Dhaka court for allegedly defrauding a customer who bought a motorcycle from their site.
Mohammad Rassel and Shamima Nasrin failed to appear before the court on Monday, despite being summoned earlier in a case filed by Tanvir Hossain, who claimed that he paid Tk2.45 lakh through mobile banking to buy a motorcycle from Evaly in March last year, but never received the product.
Hossain said that he was given a cheque by Evaly in September as a refund, but the cheque bounced when he tried to cash it in multiple banks. He then sent a legal notice to the e-commerce company in October, but did not get any response.
Evaly, which has been facing a liquidity crisis and allegations of embezzlement from customers and merchants, recently resumed its operations after getting approval from the commerce ministry. The company said that it would start refunding the money stuck in the payment gateway from January and clear the legacy debt on bank cheques from May.
Rassel, who stepped down as the CEO of Evaly in December, said that the company had received a “great response” from customers and merchants since restarting its business. He also claimed that the company had improved its governance and transparency, and was working to regain the trust of the stakeholders.
However, the legal action against Rassel and Nasrin could pose a serious challenge for Evaly, which is already under investigation by the Anti-Corruption Commission and the Bangladesh Bank for alleged financial irregularities.
