The world may know Muhammad Yunus as the Nobel Peace Prize-winning “banker to the poor,” but beneath that polished facade lies a trail of corruption, abuse of power, and a vengeful mentality that has long plagued Bangladesh.
As the unelected Chief Adviser of Bangladesh’s interim government since August 2024, Yunusโoften derided as a Western puppetโhas only amplified his misdeeds, using state machinery to whitewash his past crimes while granting undue favours to his Grameen empire. Now, former National Security Intelligence (NSI) officer Aminul Hoque Polash has detonated yet another bombshell, unearthing irrefutable evidence of Yunus’ brazen self-enrichment at the expense of the very institution he claims to have built.
On Monday, Polash posted a damning lease contract on Facebook, captioning it: “The following document is one of the proofs of how arbitrarily Dr. Muhammad Yunus managed Grameen Bank according to his whims and desires while he was the MD of Grameen Bank and turned Grameen Bank into a tool for his personal interests.”
The document in question, signed on August 3, 2008, reveals a sweetheart deal between the Nobel Laureate Trustโchaired by one Tabarak Hossainโand the Yunus Centre, headed by Yunus himself. It granted Yunus a whopping 11,000 square feet of prime office space on the 16th floor of Grameen Bank’s Mirpur-2 headquarters for a nominal annual rent of just Tk1,000. That’s a laughable Tk83.33 per monthโless than a cup of tea in Dhakaโfor space worth millions in market value.
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This isn’t philanthropy; it’s feudal-era plunder, reminiscent of the arbitrary rule under Mughal viceroy Shaista Khan.
But the real criminal genius lies in the setup: Yunus, as Managing Director of Grameen Bank, first funnelled the property to his own Nobel Laureate Trust. Then, in a classic case of self-dealing, he leased it back to himself via Tabarak Hossain, the trust’s chairman. Yunus’ own signature gleams on the page like a confession โ undeniable proof of how he hijacked public resources for personal gain.
This isn’t isolated; it’s the tip of an iceberg that Polash, drawing from declassified 1970s-80s documents, claims exposes Yunus as a fraud who stole the microcredit model from a Chittagong University research project funded by public money, rebranding it as his own to amass power and wealth.
Yunus’ rap sheet as Grameen Bank’s MD (1983-2011) reads like a catalogue of elite impunity. He was ousted in 2011 for flouting retirement rules, but not before allegedly siphoning funds: In the 1990s, his family-owned Packages Corporation Limited scored a shady 9.5 crore taka loan from Grameen Bank, bypassing all protocols. By 2024, courts indicted him and 13 others for embezzling 252 million taka ($2 million) from Grameen Telecom’s workers’ welfare fundโa fund meant for the poor he pretends to championโplus money laundering charges.
He faced over 170 lawsuits for labour violations, tax evasion, and fund misuse, including a six-month jail sentence in January 2024 for failing to establish a welfare fund at Grameen Telecom โ a conviction Amnesty International slammed as a “blatant abuse” of justice. Critics, including ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, branded him a “bloodsucker” for Grameen’s exorbitant interest rates that trapped rural women in debt cycles. A 2011 government probe uncovered rule breaches and fund diversions, while allegations swirled of manipulating Grameen Bank’s ownership to consolidate control.
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Fast-forward to his current reign as Chief Adviser, and Yunus has weaponised the interim government to erase his stains and entrench his cronies. In a blatant indemnity scheme, his administration swiftly overturned his own six-month prison sentence, quashed five labour cases, and dismissed corruption and food adulteration probes by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
He’s showered Grameen entities with perks: Waiving a staggering Tk666 crore tax liability for Grameen Kalyan, granting a five-year tax holiday for Grameen Bank, and fast-tracking exclusive licenses like a digital wallet for Grameen Telecom’s Samadhan and a manpower export permit for Grameen Employment Services.
Polash accuses the regime of rampant nepotism, overturning sentences for criminals, withdrawing corruption cases, and using state funds to bail out Yunus’ network โ all while the economy sputters under 4% growth forecasts and runaway inflation.
Yunus’ vengeful streak shines through in his selective “justice”: He’s greenlit show trials for Hasina (sentenced to death in November 2025 for uprising-related charges) and Awami League leaders, while Human Rights Watch urges him to drop politically motivated cases against them โ a call he’s ignored.
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Under his watch, anti-Hindu violence has surged, with idol desecrations and attacks on minorities. Tensions with India have boiled over, from border closures to irredentist claims on northeastern territories, fueling far-right backlash.
The man who seized a nation’s bank to lease himself space for pennies now clings to power 16 months in, without elections or a constitution in his name. Instead of uniting Bangladesh, Yunus has deepened divisions, propping up BNP-Jamaat allies while forcing out student advisers like Mahfuj Alam and Asif Mahmud under opposition pressure.
Polash’s revelations aren’t just a scandal; they’re a reckoning. Yunus didn’t build Grameen โ he hijacked it, just as he’s hijacking Bangladesh. The people deserve better than this Nobel fraud’s whims. Time to demand real accountability, before his “social business” bankrupts the nation.
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