Irregularities of Rs 100 crore, ED conducts raid at Nemom Cooperative Bank

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has conducted a raid at the Nemom Service Cooperative Bank, where a huge financial irregularity of nearly Rs 100 crore took place. An ED team from Kochi is raiding the bank. Around 1200 depositors had deposited Rs 112 crore in the bank. It was earlier found that there was irregularity of Rs 96 crore. Soon after the news of the fraud emerged, the former president and secretary of the bank's governing body, ruled by the CPM, were arrested. CPM area committee member and former president of the bank, R Pradeep Kumar, and former secretary Balachandran Nair were arrested.

Balachandran Nair committed a fraud of Rs 20.76 crore and Pradeep Kumar a fraud of Rs 3 crore. Although a charge sheet has been filed against former secretary A R Rajendra Kumar, who committed a fraud of Rs 32 crore and S S Sandhya, who committed an irregularity of Rs 10.41 crore, as accused, no arrests were made. The figures of losses caused to the bank by each of the board members over a period of ten years have also come to light.

The bank has to get Rs 34.26 crore from the Rs 96 crore fraud loan. The government-appointed committee found that only Rs 15.55 crore of this was pledged as collateral. Of the Rs 10.73 crore that is due under the monthly investment plan, only Rs 4.83 crore is pledged. Meanwhile, a few days ago, the bank had detained the administrator in protest against the non-return of money to the investors despite the withdrawal of more than Rs 60 lakh.

A large police team reached the spot, but the investors did not withdraw. The investors took the stand that the blockade would be lifted only when the joint registrar arrived, so the police spoke to him over the phone. The blockade was lifted that day after the joint registrar assured that the money received would be distributed on a priority basis.