Plumber helps anti-corruption sleuths foil Karnataka engineer's bid to hide ill-gotten wealth

ACB SP Mahesh Meghannavar said when they knocked on Shantagouda's door in the morning at about 9.00 am, he made them wait for 10 minutes, which raised suspicion

ACB sleuths collecting cash from the drainage pipe from the house of Shantagouda (Photo | Special arrangement)

KALABURAGI: The raid at Gubbi Colony in Kalaburagi looked straight out of a Bollywood movie. Sleuths of the Anti-Corruption Bureau recovered cash and gold ornaments from an unlikely location -- a drainage pipe in the residence of a junior engineer here on Wednesday.

ACB sleuths removing gold ornaments and cash with the help of a plumber from the house of a JE of PWD situated in Gubbi Colony of Kalaburagi during their raid on Wednesday. @XpressBengaluru .@KannadaPrabha pic.twitter.com/XMUqHEMawA

— Ramkrishna Badseshi (@Ramkrishna_TNIE) November 24, 2021

Speaking to The New Indian Express, ACB SP Mahesh Meghannavar said that sleuths reached the house of PWD JE Shantagouda Biradar on Wednesday morning. Meghannavar said when they knocked on the door in the morning at about 9.00 am, he made them wait for 10 minutes.

Suspecting that Shantagouda and his family members had thrown valuables in the drainage pipe of the house, the sleuths summoned a local plumber and broke it open, recovering Rs 13.5 lakh in cash and gold ornaments.

Apart from this, Rs 6 lakh in cash was recovered from the ceiling. All the recovered currency was in the denomination of Rs 500.

Shantagouda who is presently working as PWD JE in the Jewargi sub-division joined the service as temporary JE in Zilla Panchayat sub-division in 1992 and his service was confirmed in 2000.

Meghannavar said that calculation of the property of Shantagouda is still in the assessment stage and the details will be known soon.