Kochi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested two persons over the case registered over the multi-crore loan scam at the Karuvannur Cooperative Bank in Thrissur district.
The arrested persons are Satheesh Kumar, who is allegedly a ‘benami’ of some top politicians, and P P Kiran, an intermediary.
The arrest of Satheesh and Kiran was recorded by 10 pm on Monday by ED after subjecting them to interrogation for three days at a stretch.
There were allegations that Satheesh was the benami of former minister and current legislator AC Moideen and Kiran had reportedly swindled Rs 22 crore from the bank.
Moideen did not appear before the ED officials on Monday (Sept 4) for questioning. According to political sources, the CPM did not wish Moideen to be interrogated by the ED before Tuesday's (Sept 5) bypoll at the Puthuppally assembly constituency.
At the same time, ED has sought legal opinion to intensify its measures against Moideen. Even though Moideen informed ED that he would appear before it on September 14 for questioning, the latter is unwilling to grant him anymore time.
Moideen has kept away from questioning twice, citing personal reasons.
In a related development, ED also took statements from C K Chandran, a district leader of the CPM who is close to Moideen and former bank manager Biju Kareem.
ED had launched a parallel probe into the scam after the Kerala Police registered a case. ED made the move after receiving a tip-off that apart from fraudulently advancing loans in the name of customers without their knowledge, widespread money-laundering had taken place at the bank.
