MADURAI: The DVAC sleuths conducted raids at 11 places across six districts, including Madurai and Chennai, in connection with a case booked against 11 people over alleged prison fraud, on Friday.
The DVAC had registered a case against 11 people, including the then superintendent of Madurai Central Prison M Urmila, former jailer S Vasantha Kannan and former administrative officer M Thiagarajan, on charges of misappropriating Rs 1.63 crore between 2019 and 2021 while purchasing raw materials to manufacture stationery, and manipulating prison records pertaining to the supply of stationery articles to government departments.
A senior DVAC official said the search operations were held across Madurai, Theni, Chennai, Vellore, Tiruvannamalai and Tirunelveli, and the searches commenced around 8 am and continued till 5 pm at the Madurai prison. A few documents and materials were collected, the official added.
Though the searches were in connection with the misappropriation case, the officials will file separate cases against the accused if they find any disproportionate assets.
According to the FIR filed in Madurai, the three public servants hatched a criminal conspiracy with private individuals, who agreed to commit fraud with respect to purchasing raw materials for manufacturing huge quantity of stationery articles, by making false entries.
It may be noted that Urmila is now the superintendent of Cuddalore Central Prison, while Kannan is serving as additional superintendent of Palayamkottai Prison and Thiagarajan, the AO of Vellore Central Prison.
The private individuals named in the FIR are V M Jaffarullakhan of JK Traders, his sons Mohammed Ansar and Mohammed Ali, S Seenivasan of SS Traders and his wife Shanthi of Shanthi Traders, Sankarasubbu, a businessman, his wife Dhanalakshmi and daughter Venkateswari.