On Wednesday, the Kochi branch officials of the Enforcement Directorate conducted raids at the premises of individuals accused in the Rs 312 crore fraud at Karubannur Co-operative Bank, which is controlled by the ruling CPM, as per reports.
The #EnforcementDirectorate (@dir_ed) attached to the #Kochi office on Wednesday started simultaneous raids at the residences of five accused in the Rs 312 crore fraud at the CPI-M controlled Trissur-based Karuvannur Cooperative bank. pic.twitter.com/RQ2KmOPzyQ
— IANS (@ians_india) August 10, 2022
As per reports, a 75-member team of ED has been ordered to raid the houses of the bank president, secretary and other accused persons.
The scam was unearthed in Kerala in 2021. On July 14, 2021, the Irinjalakuda police registered a complaint against the accused persons. Soon after, the case was handed over to the state crime branch. There have been allegations that board members of the bank were aware of the ongoing fraud, and rampant forgery of signatures and documents was carried out.
The bank had shown deposits worth Rs 501 crores in the year 2015-16. In the next year, the balance came down to Rs 424 crores as Rs 77 crores were withdrawn. In the year 2018, it came down to Rs 405 crores and in the year 2019-20, it further went down to Rs 340 crores. The bank had reportedly informed the court that they had only Rs 60 lakhs in cash.
As per reports, 4 of the 5 accused persons are already out on bail. Last week, the Kerala HC had ordered to stop all payments from the bank except the emergency ones. It had also asked the Vijayan government to prepare a roadmap to pay back the depositors.
