The total financial "obligation" for this programme was spectacularly raised (2017-2025) from US$ 1.8 million to US$ 29.9 million - an increase of 1555 percent - that originated as American federal government funding.

The reference to US$ 29 million first cropped up when Donald Trump, who assumed the US President's office on January 20, 2025, said a month later that the money went to "strengthen the political landscape and help them out so that they can vote for a radical left communist in Bangladesh. You've got to see who they supported". This was in reference to the Joe Biden administration and the USAID.

Now, for the first time since a US-led regime change operation became a reality in early August 2024, Northeast News has accessed documents that reveal a part of the money trail that led to the wider conspiracy to fund an operation involving Democracy International, USAID, a Bangladeshi NGO with links to the US, a newspaper and a communications marketing company. All the three entities are Dhaka-based.

While one part of the conspiracy involved the above chain, the other - more critical - part was the super-secret involvement of the Bangladesh Army some of whose officers in the higher echelons played a shadowy role to topple the Sheikh Hasina regime in the backdrop of a so-called students' movement in July-August 2024.

The documents accessed by Northeast News reveal an elaborate plan to route parts of US$ 29.9 million to three Dhaka-based entities - Samakal (a Bengali daily), M/s Beatnik Marketing Communications Ltd and The Hunger Project - under the Cooperative Agreement (code: AID388A1700003). This is the very amount that US President Donald Trump revealed during an off-the-cuff remark on Mohammad Yunus and the interim regime established on August 8, 2024.

The funding agency for the "strengthening political landscape in Bangladesh" programme was the US Mission to Bangladesh (USAID-OM). What comes into sharp focus - following analysis of the documents - was that an "amendment" was made to the original funding obligations (with a start date of February 3, 2017) by extending the programme from January 3, 2022, to January 10, 2025.

In other words, this extended the time period was when the entire conspiracy was played out on the ground. A Grameen Group notification seen by Northeast News shows that Mohammad Yunus stepped down as the Group chairman on March 7, 2023, a clear sign that he was then prepared by US state actors to become part of the conspiracy to be the "face" of the so-called resistance.

Democracy International's SPL programme was "funded by USAID and DFID (UK's Department of International Development), works to build political party capacity and strengthen relationships between parties and constituents while reducing political violence".

Additionally, SPL, Democracy International's website says, "aims to confront the challenge of political violence by engaging political parties, grassroots activists, and university students, monitoring incidents of violence, and promoting peaceful alternatives".

Deeper documentary analysis shows that under a "sub-award (4018-DSK1-C2001)", the first "awardee" - Samakal - was to "organize roundtable discussions, convening women and youth political leaders and relevant stakeholders in front of an audience to discuss pressing contemporary national issues and advancing women and youth leadership in politics".

Documents show that the amount "obligated" to Samakal was slightly over US$ 29,000. Phone calls and messages over WhatsApp did not elicit any response from Samakal's promoter A K Azad.

Likewise, Dhaka-based M/s Beatnik Marketing Communications Ltd (subaward ID 4018-BEA3-C2001) was to "create a digital knowledge repository of democratic processes, political party building tools, political conflict mitigation techniques etc for promoting democratic values and best practices". For this, Beatnik Marketing Communications Ltd was to receive (or received) US$ 102,200.

Beatnik Marketing Communications Ltd did not respond to Northeast News' phone calls. A person, who identified himself as Mahbub, did take Northeast News' first phone call on April 23. However, a request for Mir Shahadat Hosain (the company's Co-Founder and CEO) to return the call was ignored. A second phone call (at 2:54 pm IST; 3:24 pm BST) went unanswered.

The bulk of the subgrant awards went to The Hunger Project (subaward ID 4018-THP1-G1701) that is led by its Dhaka-based leader Badiul Alam Mazumdar who played a leading role in Bangladesh's civil society participation in the political movement, involving coalition building with political parties opposed to the Awami League.

The Hunger Project's task, as defined under the subgrant awards' objectives, was to "help to expand on our current monitoring-mapping-mitigation feedback loop model to ensure that all incidents are documented and publicized, that parties are called out for supporting violence, and that they have the tools to pursue alternative, peaceful approaches".

The "transaction history" for the awards reveals that as part of an "action type" the funds released as "continuation" were US$ 1.5 million on "action date" November 25, 2024, for "strengthening political (SPL)" activity, followed by US$ 5 million on June 11, 2023, but no money was disbursed on August 20, 2024, December 7, 2022 and July 7, 2022. The awarding/funding office was "USAID/BANGLADESH".

The federal account from which the funds were released was for "Development Assistance, Agency for International Developments, and "Funds Appropriated to the President".

The budget's subfunction was described as "International development and humanitarian assistance" for which US$ 16,399,137 or 43 percent of grants, subsidies and contributions were paid. Under a separate head (gifts and donations, agency for international development), US$ 13,911,295 or 37 percent of "grants, subsidies and contributions" were paid.

Merely US$ 3,900 was disbursed as "international security assistance" under the "Economic Support Fund, Funds Appropriated to the President" federal account. At the same time, only US$ 3,710 was disbursed from the Democracy Fund, State" federal account for the "international development and humanitarian assistance" subfunction. These two components comprised 10 percent each of the total budget.

By the time the USAID project ended on January 10, 2025, the total money disbursed between 2017 and 2025 was US$ 3.64 million in 2024, US$ 3.70 million in 2023, US$ 3.24 million in 2022, US$ 2.95 million in 2021, US$ 3.37 million in 2020, US$ 6.74 million in 2019, US$ 3.56 million in 2018 and US$ 0.79 million in 2017. This adds up to UD$ 27.99 million.

It is likely that the money was used from the total budgetary allocation of US$ 29.9 million to fund the political activities of the US Endowment for Democracy's mission carried out by International Republic Institute (ISI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) which played significant roles in pursuing research in Bangladesh between 2023 and 2024.

In February 2025, the then Foreign Ministry Adviser Touhid Hossain said there was no official record of any Bangladeshi entity having received such funds, even as there are records to show that money was disbursed to Samakal, Beatnik Marketing Communications and The Hunger Project.