KOCHI: Enforcement Directorate (ED) which is probing the money laundering in the Karuvannur Service Cooperative Bank loan scam arrested two persons, including suspected binami of former minister and CPM MLA A C Moideen, on Monday. The arrested are Kiran P, of Perinjanam, and Satheesh Kumar P, of Kannur, currently based in Thrissur.
The duo along with prime accused and former bank manager Biju Karim were questioned by ED for three days before the national agency decided to arrest Kiran and Satheesh on Monday evening. The allegation against Satheesh is that he was the mastermind behind the entire loan scam coming to the tune of Rs 150 crore.
It was Satheesh who arranged binami borrowers including Kiran to whom loans were disbursed without proper mortgage documents. In return, Satheesh received a share of the released loan amount. Satheesh was a close aide of several local CPM leaders. On the other hand, Kiran was granted loan to the tune of Rs 14 crore though he was not a member of the bank and didn’t submit any mortgage documents.
The ED found that a major chunk of the loan amount granted to Kiran went to Satheesh. The arrest of Satheesh will be crucial for Moideen who has already skipped two notices issued to him by the ED to appear for interrogation. In the second notice, the ED had asked him to appear before it on Monday. However, Moideen sent an email to the agency claiming that he has two officials events to attend in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday and Tuesday and sought postponement of interrogation.