Drug case: Bengaluru ED summons Bineesh Kodiyeri for questioning

Bengaluru: The Bengaluru unit of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned Bineesh Kodiyeri, the son of Kerala CPM secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, to appear before it on October 6 for questioning on alleged benami transactions.

The questioning will mainly focus on Bineesh's financial dealings with Anoop Mohammad, a native of Vennala in Kochi who has been arrested in a drugs case. Bineesh will also be interrogated about the financial sources of the Bengaluru-based Bee Capitals Forex Trading Company that he owns.

There are reports he will also be questioned by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

Trouble began for the second son of the CPM Kerala state secretary after Bengaluru drug racket accused Anoop Mohammad gave a statement to the NCB in which he mentioned his name.

Anoop, in his statements to investigators, has said that Bineesh had helped him financially to start a hotel called Hyatt in Kammanahalli in Bengaluru. Bineesh has admitted that he had helped Anoop. But while he has said he offered Rs 6 lakh as financial assistance, ED suspects that the transaction could have involved a sum as high as Rs 50 lakh.

The NCB, which busted the drugs case, found that Anoop and his arrested accomplice Rijesh Raveendran from Thiruvilwamala in Thrissur were dealing in drugs using the hotel as cover.

The ED's summons to Bineesh follows its interrogations of both Anoop and Raveendran.

Last month Bineesh was interrogated by the ED in Kochi for more than 11 hours and later the Central agency had frozen transactions of his properties. He will be interrogated again in the wake of revelations that he, along with two other people, has huge real estate investments in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

According to Anoop, the personal staff members of two ministers in Kerala also have real estate investments that are far in excess of their actual income.