THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) letter to the state police chief makes a damning assertion against former chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his family, alleging that the payments received by his daughter T Veena from Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) were “nothing but bribes received on behalf of her father”.
Besides Pinarayi and Veena, the communique links the leader of opposition’s son-in-law and MLA P A Mohamed Riyas to suspected hawala transactions. It states that Hassan Varish, reportedly an associate of Riyas and Veena, received the alleged bribe money and transferred it to Dubai through a hawala agent on five occasions.
The 25-page letter, seeking a case against the trio, says Veena began receiving payments from CMRL on March 4, 2017, with the payouts continuing until May 9, 2019. She received Rs 9 lakh as first payment and accumulated Rs 3.28 crore in all. Of this, Rs 50 lakh was allegedly paid by CMRL without an invoice.
The letter also flags Veena’s 16-day trip to the UAE in 2024 as suspicious, claiming that some CMRL payments eventually found their way into foreign bank accounts. It says UAE-based associates transferred the cash to their bank accounts there. To substantiate this, the ED cites diary entries reportedly made by senior CMRL officials, handwritten notes, including those by Veena, sensitive details from a red diary allegedly belonging to the former CM’s daughter, and leads from the money trail.
The letter states unequivocally that CMRL had deliberately masked several payments made to Veena. It says she failed to produce any evidence to establish that she had rendered services to the company in return for the payments.
Govt sanction needed for probe against Pinarayi, Riyas
Though the letter refers to alleged hawala transactions alongside corruption charges, the ED makes it clear that it’s recommending registration of an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA). While the alleged hawala transactions fall within the ED’s purview, the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) is most likely to be entrusted with the corruption probe.
Before the VACB can proceed against Pinarayi and Riyas, however, the state government will have to sanction the investigation, as both are sitting MLAs.
Sources said the ED’s interest in recommending filing of an FIR is that it could then register a money-laundering case under the PMLA, citing the state agency’s case as the predicate offence.