Police arrested Regent Group Chairman Mohammad Shahed alias Shahed Karim on Monday in Dhaka’s ECB Chattar area. A Dhaka court subsequently sent him to jail in connection with a Tk2.16 crore cheque dishonour case filed by Mercantile Cooperative Bank.
According to case files, Shahed took a Tk2.16 crore business loan from the bank in 2015, providing a security cheque for the same amount. When he failed to repay the debt, the cheque bounced, prompting the bank to sue him under the Negotiable Instruments Act of 1881. On May 4, 2025, the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court convicted Shahed, sentencing him to one year in prison and fining him the equivalent of the cheque amount.
Following his arrest on Monday Judge Sadik Ahmed of the Joint Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court-5 ordered him to jail. Shahed's lawyer Mohammad Dabir Uddin stated that Shahed had already been imprisoned for four and a half years when this specific case was filed, though he was not officially shown as arrested for it at the time. His defense team plans to appeal the court's sentence.
Shahed previously drew nationwide infamy in 2020 for a major scandal at Regent Hospital, which involved issuing fake COVID-19 test reports during the pandemic.
