Karuvannur bank scam; ED to grill A C Moideen, freezes FD, statement says MLA was aware of irregularities

KOCHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will grill former minister A C Moideen in the Karuvannur Cooperative bank scam case. A notice will be served to him. The ED froze the MLA’s fixed deposit of Rs 30 lakh. The ED said this amount is unaccounted.

It was found that Moideen had constantly contacted suspected benamis. The raid found that there were two registers in Karuvannur Cooperative Bank for committing the irregularities. There are phone conversations between former branch manager Biju Kareem and Moideen in the money transactions. Crores were sanctioned as loans to those directed by Moideen.

Apart from Moideen's house, ED raids were conducted at the houses of Anil Subhash, Sathish, Shiju and Rahim. ED suspects that they are benami of Moideen. ED also said that Shiju and Rahim are distant relatives of Moideen. Many important documents and financial investments were found with them. It was also found that one of them has about 50 accounts in the cooperative bank and the other has about 25 accounts. ED concluded that this is for benami transaction. The ED found that loans of Rs 45 crore were given to suspected benami under the influence of Moideen. The notice will be sent to Moideen only after questioning them. It is reported that one of the co-operative registrars gave a statement against the MLA. The registrar had earlier asked Moideen to stop the fraud happening in the bank. It is for this the ED has come to the conclusion that Moideen is involved in the loan irregularities.