ED raids Thrissur cooperative bank in connection to 300-crore scam

Kerala: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday carried out a raid on the Karuvannur Cooperative Bank where a Rs 300-crore scam has allegedly taken place, an ED source told PTI.

The action came nearly two weeks after the ED officials carried out simultaneous raids at locations linked to the five main accused of the scan including their offices and residences.

The scam had first come to light in August 2019, when the joint registrar of the cooperative bank ordered a probe which led to the revelation of the multi crore scam. The examination of the audit reports found that the scam
primarily involved six people, including the bank manager Biju Kareem, Secretary TR Sunilkumar, accountant Jils CK and a member of the bank, Kiran, who was reportedly a commission agent. Biju is a CPM Porathissery local committee member, and Sunilkumar is a Karuvannur local committee member of CPM.

CPM government had earlier dissolved the administrative panel soon after the financial irregularity was reported and registered cases against the officials and agents of the bank to avoid backlash. There were six accused in the earlier list and with the new addition, the total number of accused in the case rose to 18, as per the report published by news nine.

The scam primarily involved sanctioning of multiple loans of large amounts against the properties of customers without their knowledge. It involved fake signatures, re-mortgaged properties, and a significant number of people receiving collection notices for amounts that they had never borrowed.

This way, many individuals had received loans ranging between Rs 13 lakh to Rs 26 crore without their consent. And these borrowers had not paid back the loans. As many as 379 illegal loans were doled out illegally by certain officials, said media reports.

Last month, death of a woman depositor in the bank had sparked controversy since family alleged that she was denied money for advanced treatment by the management despite having lakhs of rupees as deposit in the bank.

The ED is yet to share details of the current raid which was in process at the time this news piece was written.

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