Did Muhammad Yunus steal the microcredit idea? Ex-intelligence officer claims Nobel laureate hijacked university research

Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus speaks at a session during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 22, 2025. (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP)

Explosive allegations have been made by exiled former Bangladeshi intelligence officer Aminul Hoque Polash, who claims that Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus did not invent microcredit, but instead took over a university research initiative and later reshaped the narrative for personal gain.

Polash, a former officer of the National Security Intelligence, says he was forced into exile after investigating Yunus for alleged corruption. He has now released internal documents from 1976 to 1983 which, he claims, expose the true origins of microcredit and contradict the global image of Yunus as its sole architect.

“These are Yunus’s own signatures," Polash said, insisting that the documents prove microcredit was not an individual innovation but a collective academic project.

Microcredit began as a university research programme

According to Polash, the roots of microcredit lie in the Rural Economics Programme launched at Chittagong University in 1976 with funding from the Ford Foundation. The well-known pilot project in Jobra village was part of this initiative and was primarily conducted by junior researchers including Swapan Adnan, Nasiruddin and HI Latifee.

He claims Yunus’s official role at the time was limited to managing deep tubewell cooperatives and that he was not part of the core micro-lending team. This, Polash argues, challenges the widely believed narrative that Yunus personally led the original experiment.

Further, the documents reportedly show that Bangladesh Bank formally adopted the rural credit idea as a national programme in 1978 and approved Tk 100 crore for its implementation through state banks. This effort was named the “Grameen Bank Project”, suggesting that the concept had already been institutionalised before Yunus emerged as the dominant figure.

Polash also points to a letter from the Ford Foundation dated 1983 which he says confirms the grant was awarded to Chittagong University and not to Yunus personally.

From project director to personal empire

Polash claims that Yunus later positioned himself as Project Director and eventually became the Managing Director of Grameen Bank after the 1983 Grameen Bank Ordinance. Over time, he allegedly transformed what was a public research and development initiative into a global institution under his personal control.

By the 1990s, Polash says, the original academic and state-backed project had effectively become Yunus’s private empire, both in practice and perception.

Allegations of continued misuse of power

Polash argues that the same pattern of control is now being repeated at the national level. Since becoming Chief Advisor in August 2024, Yunus has allegedly used state institutions to eliminate his personal legal troubles and strengthen his business interests.

Within 15 months, Polash claims:

His prior prison sentence was overturned, five labour cases were quashed, and corruption and food adulteration cases were dismissed or withdrawn by the Anti Corruption Commission and the courts.

Grameen companies reportedly received major financial benefits, including the cancellation of a Tk 666 crore tax liability for Grameen Kalyan and a five-year tax exemption for Grameen Bank.

Exclusive licenses were allegedly granted, including a digital wallet license for Grameen Telecom’s Samadhan and a manpower export license for Grameen Employment Services. There were also moves to reduce the government’s stake in Grameen Bank.

Polash argues that these developments point to a wider pattern of institutional capture.

He says the world must move beyond the carefully built image of Yunus as the inventor of microcredit and confront what he calls the historical truth, warning that the man who “stole a rural research project now governs an entire country with the same appetite for capture".

According to Polash, the documents he has released challenge not just a reputation, but the foundation of a global narrative that has shaped how microfinance and development economics are understood for decades.