Bestinet founder among Malaysians with luxury Dubai properties

The founder of the controversial migrant recruitment technology company Bestinet Sdn Bhd is among some 300 Malaysians who own luxury properties in Dubai.

According to leaked property data, accessed by Malaysiakini through a consortium of investigative journalists, Bestinet’s former president Aminul Islam Abdul Nor owns a four-bedroom luxury residential property at Sidra Villas, a residential community in the prestigious Dubai Hills Estate.

The posh dwelling has four bedrooms and a build-up area of 3,595.25 sq ft (334.1 sq m), according to property data leaked through a journalism consortium - the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

Artist's impression of Sidra Villas

Comparable properties in the same residential area are advertised for sale with an asking price of AED7.5 million (RM8.76 million).

Its developer Emaar Properties describes it as “a prestigious community that epitomises sophisticated urban living.”

“Boasting an array of luxurious properties, including stunning villas and apartments, this development presents a golden opportunity for property investment in Dubai,” it said.

Besides the opulent villa, Dubai property records also showed that Aminul owns two office units at The Binary by Omniyat, an iconic skyscraper in the city’s Business Bay.

According to estimates by property website Bayut.com, office units there are sold between AED700,000 for 896 sq ft of space to AED3.8 million for 3,393 sq ft of space.

The units owned by Aminul are 2,292.93 and 1,647.42 sq ft respectively, the documents revealed.

The Binary by Omniyat

When contacted, Aminul declined to respond but a source close to him confirmed the properties do belong to him. The source also said they were purchased legitimately.

Owning property in Dubai is not illegal but experts say Dubai’s property market is particularly attractive to real estate speculators, money launderers, and tax evaders in part due to its absence of taxes, particularly tax on capital gains and rents.

The documents reviewed by Malaysiakini do not suggest that Aminul’s assets were purchased through dubious means, or that the source of the income was questionable.

However, Aminul’s upmarket property holdings are in stark contrast with the plight of scores of Bangladeshi migrant workers, who reportedly are forced to mortgage or sell off family land to pay exorbitant fees to come to work in blue-collar jobs in Malaysia.

Money laundering accusations

In late October, the Bangladeshi government wrote to the Malaysian police seeking the arrest and extradition of Aminul and an associate in the migrant worker business, Ruhul Amin @ Swapon, over accusations of money laundering, extortion, and trafficking of migrant workers.

Official document revealing Ruhul Amin’s Catharsis Solutions Ltd was once known as Bestinet Bangladesh.

Ruhul runs Catharsis International, a company which manages migrant worker recruitment in Bangladesh, but he has been widely reported as an associate of Aminul.

According to official documents obtained by Bangladesh newspaper Prothom Alo, Bestinet Bangladesh Ltd was registered there on March 24, 2014, with Aminul as chairperson and Ruhul as managing director.

Aminul transferred all his shares in Bestinet Bangladesh to Ruhul in 2019 and three years later, the company was renamed Catharsis Solutions, according to a document from Bangladesh’s Registrar of Joint Stock Companies And Firms.

Ruhul owns Catharsis International and Catharsis Solutions.

Malaysian authorities confirmed receiving the Bangladesh government’s letter seeking Aminul’s extradition and replied to the letter requesting the Bangladesh police to submit a formal request.

Based on interviews with industry insiders, Prothom Alo reported in September that Aminul and Besinet were accused of money laundering via migrant worker recruitment fees, to the tune of Tk87.50 billion (RM3.22 billion).

The MACC has cleared the company of the allegations while N Sivanathan, the lawyer representing the company and Aminul, said his clients were falsely accused of money laundering.

Aminul was the primary mover of Malaysia’s Foreign Worker Central Management System (FWCMS) and controlled Bestinet from its inception. Today, however, he only owns one percent of the company.

Celebrity counsellor and life coach Abdullah Sher Kawi Jaafar, famed for his appearance as a trainer in the reality TV show “Akademi Fantasia”, now holds 93.45 percent of the company.

Long controversy

Bestinet has long been dogged by controversy, starting from 2015, when the FWCMS it provided to the government was suspended from use amid claims that it won the deal through political connections, ostensibly with former home minister Azmi Khalid.

In a response at the time, Azmi said the deal was not signed yet and that it was only in the proof of concept stage.

Despite the initial suspension, the system was later reinstated and used by government agencies to process the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers entering Malaysia every year.

However, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and Auditor-General’s Department found there was never a formal contract between the government and Bestinet, which collected RM100 from each worker for the service.

The PAC found that the cabinet in August 2015 agreed to trial the FWCMS and another system provided by another provider, called ePPAx.

ePPAx was built by Syarikat Ivy Matrix Sdn Bhd, which won a RM20 million Human Resources Ministry project through an open tender.

The PAC found both the FWCMS and ePPAx served the same purpose of “processing (migrant workers) from the application stage to the end of employment and return to their sending country”.

Unauthorised approvals

Despite the development of ePPAx, the Home Ministry decided to use FWCMS instead, and in 2018 issued an approval letter to Bestinet to develop, supply, provide, and maintain FWCMS for six years from April 1, 2018, to May 31, 2024.

On Dec 22, 2021, the Ismail Sabri Yaakob-led cabinet agreed to use FWCMS exclusively but no formal contract was drawn up. Hamzah Zainudin was the home minister at the time.

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

The PAC also flagged other issues, including system vulnerabilities to hacking and potential fraud in migrant worker management.

Despite these issues, in June, the cabinet agreed to extend Bestinet’s contract for another three years, but with improvements in governance. - Mkini