Thrissur: A majority of the benami loans, worth Rs 150 crore in total, extended by the Karuvannur Cooperative Bank were on the direction of former minister and CPM state committee member A C Moideen, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has found.
The economic intelligence agency has issued a summons to Moideen and former bank manager Biju Kareem to appear for questioning on August 31.
It was Moideen who controlled the state of affairs of the bank when he was a CPM district committee member. The interrogation is being carried out to shed light on how his close circles were extending the loan from the bank illegally, sources said.
Also, the ED would probe the "nexus" between bank manager Biju and Moideen. Earlier, ED officials raided the houses of Moideen and other accused on the basis of the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. If a case is registered under the act, then the arrest is unavoidable.
As per the complaint, more than Rs 300 crore is involved in the scam perpetrated by the managing body of the Karuvannur Cooperative Bank in the Irinjalakuda area. ED is probing only the allegations regarding the bank loan fraud. Other investment scams, such as transferring money to other accounts, are in addition to this.
The agency has made it clear that the leaders of a political party that administered the bank have a role in the scam, though it stopped short of naming the CPM. The same has resulted in the questioning of the Crime Branch action, which included only the bank officials and local leaders in the accused list while excluding Moideen and the benamis.
Besides freezing an account with a Rs 28 lakh investment, the ED also took similar action with regard to 36 assets of Moideen worth Rs 15 crore. The agency earlier froze the Rs 30 crore asset of Commission agent A K Bijoy. It is now investigating whether Moideen owns any portion of the Binami assets.
The probe so far revealed that the scamsters pledged the assets of the bank members, a majority of whom were financially poor, without their knowledge and extended the loans to benamis who were not members through agents. The accused made huge financial gains through this illegal act, it was found.
