The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has blown the lid off an alleged ‘bribe-for-relief’ racket involving ED officials in Kochi.
Published May 20, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated May 20, 2025 | 11:21 PM
The ED, known for its noose-tightening operations against political adversaries, now grapples with a crisis of credibility.
Synopsis: A high-profile bribery scandal in Kerala has left the Enforcement Directorate battling a severe credibility crisis, after the state’s Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau exposed an alleged ₹2-crore extortion racket involving ED officials. The case began with a complaint from a cashew exporter and has since led to FIRs, including one against a senior ED officer.
For years, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has loomed large over India’s political landscape, accused time and again of being the Union Government’s go-to agency to corner dissenters and opposition leaders.
But in Kerala, the tables have turned dramatically.
The state’s Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has blown the lid off an alleged ‘bribe-for-relief’ racket involving ED officials in Kochi.
What began as a routine trap has snowballed into a full-blown scandal, leaving the ED red-faced and triggering political tremors.
As the probe deepens, ED, known for its noose-tightening operations against political adversaries, now grapples with a crisis of credibility. The hunter has become the hunted.
The scandal came to light after Aneesh Babu, a cashew exporter from Kottarakkara, approached the VACB alleging that certain ED officials and their associates had tried to extort money from him in exchange for halting a probe into alleged irregularities in foreign fund transfers.
The controversy has not only exposed a nexus of middlemen operating alongside central agency officials but also raised serious concerns over the ED’s functioning in the state.
Aneesh had been interrogated last year by ED Assistant Director Shekar Kumar over suspected discrepancies in his firm’s overseas transactions.
According to the FIR filed by the VACB, the interrogation allegedly turned threatening when Shekar Kumar warned of arresting Aneesh and his family members.
Soon after, a Kochi-based middleman, Wilson Varghese, contacted the businessman, demanding ₹2 crore to end the ED’s inquiry. To convince Aneesh of his influence, Wilson even forwarded a copy of the ED’s summons.
Aneesh, instead of yielding, alerted the VACB, which launched a preliminary inquiry.
Once the allegations were verified, officials laid a trap and arrested Wilson on 15 May while he was accepting a bribe.
His arrest led to the subsequent detentions of Mukesh Jain alias Murali – a Rajasthan native settled in Kochi with alleged hawala links – and Renjith Warrier, a chartered accountant based in the city.
According to officials, Warrier had initially passed on information about Aneesh to Wilson, setting the extortion chain in motion.
The third accused, Mukesh Jain, is believed to have instructed Aneesh to deposit ₹50,000 into a bank account in Thane, Maharashtra, as part of the illicit transaction.
All three were produced before the Muvattupuzha Vigilance Court and remanded to judicial custody.
Interestingly, VACB named an Assistant Director, Shekar Kumar of the ED’s Kochi unit as the prime accused in a ₹2-crore bribery case.
The VACB has since announced its plans to seek custody for further interrogation to determine whether the accused were involved in similar extortion deals targeting other businessmen under ED scrutiny in Kerala.
The case has triggered ripples within the Enforcement Directorate itself, with the agency initiating an internal inquiry into the allegations against Assistant Director Shekar Kumar.
Officials have indicated that appropriate disciplinary action will follow based on the outcome of this probe.
In a related development, the VACB’s Ernakulam unit confirmed receiving three fresh complaints of malpractice against ED officials since the bribery case surfaced.
VACB Ernakulam SP and inquiry officer S Sasidharan stated that the bureau was currently verifying the authenticity of these oral complaints and gathering additional evidence.
Adding to the ED’s woes, complainant Aneesh Babu publicly accused ED Deputy Director Vinod Kumar of subjecting him to severe mental harassment during earlier interrogations.
Aneesh told reporters that the officer had used abusive language, humiliated him, and even forced him to sit on the floor of his cabin.
This case has intensified tensions between the ED and Kerala’s Vigilance Bureau – two agencies that have often found themselves at odds in high-profile cases, including the Thiruvananthapuram gold smuggling case and the Karuvannur Service Cooperative Bank scam.
As per an affidavit filed by the ED at the Kerala High Court, 18 Enforcement case information reports have been registered against cooperative banks/ societies in Kerala to investigate money laundering as well as financial irregularities and in majority of the cases prominent CPI(M) leaders were in the accused list.
At the same time, the CPI(M) State Secretariat has launched a scathing attack on the ED, accusing it of turning into a den of corruption while being weaponised by the BJP-led central government to target political opponents.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the CPI(M) alleged that the ED, instead of investigating genuine black money cases, has been reduced to an extortion racket.
The party cited the recent arrest of three individuals linked to ED officials in Kochi for allegedly attempting to extort crores from a cashew businessman in Kollam. And the main accused in the case being an Assistant Director of the ED’s Kochi unit.
The CPI(M) further claimed that several businessmen, religious leaders, and industrialists – regardless of their clean financial records – are being harassed under the pretext of black money investigations.
“It’s now clear the ED not only threatens but also takes bribes to settle cases,” the statement said.
Raising serious concerns about the Kodakara money heist case, the party questioned the integrity of the ED officer who handled the politically sensitive case.
The CPI(M) demanded immediate action against corrupt officials and an end to the misuse of investigative agencies for political gains.
Meanwhile, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday, 20 May, called for the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the matter.
Speaking to the media in Kozhikode, the Chief Minister said the incident had raised serious concerns about the credibility of the central investigative agency.
“This is a serious issue. For some time now, various complaints – including allegations of financial fraud – have emerged against the ED. Most lacked sufficient evidence, but now they’ve been caught red-handed,” Vijayan stated.
He added that the situation warranted a comprehensive overhaul of the agency.
“To restore the ED’s credibility, the Prime Minister must take this matter seriously and consider decisive interventions, including restructuring the agency,” he asserted.
The ED has dismissed the allegations as an attempt to derail its ongoing investigation into a money laundering case, trigger a media trial and tarnish its image.
The agency pointed out that Babu had frequently altered his statements and claims in the media and said the allegations appeared designed to prejudice public opinion and deflect attention from the investigation, the agency added.
The ED clarified that Aneesh Babu and his parents are accused in a PMLA case, registered on the basis of five FIRs by the Crime Branch and Kottarakara Police, for allegedly cheating multiple people of ₹24.73 crore by promising to import cashews at low prices from abroad.
The agency has sought details of the allegations from the VACB and stated that it would act if a prima facie case emerges.
Tasked with upholding economic laws and cracking down on financial crimes, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has often positioned itself as a fearless watchdog.
Yet, a string of recent controversies involving its own officers has cast a long shadow over the agency’s credibility, raising uncomfortable questions about accountability within its ranks.
In December 2023, a sensational case that rocked Tamil Nadu involved Ankit Tiwari, an Enforcement Directorate officer from the Madurai sub-zonal office, who was arrested by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption.
He allegedly demanded ₹3 crore from a Dindigul-based doctor to bury an ongoing probe, eventually settling for ₹51 lakh. Tiwari was nabbed red-handed while pocketing ₹20 lakh as the first installment.
In another scandal, Assistant Director Sandeep Singh Yadav was caught by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on August 8, 2024, in Delhi.
Accused of extorting ₹20 lakh from a Mumbai jeweler, Yadav allegedly threatened to implicate the businessman in a cooked-up case if the bribe wasn’t paid.
In 2024, in Karnataka, two senior ED officers found themselves on the wrong side of the law after a Social Welfare Department official in Karnataka filed a complaint, accusing them of coercing him to falsely name Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and former minister B Nagendra in a tribal welfare fund scam. The Wilson Garden police swiftly booked a case under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
In Kerala, what began as a lone businessman’s defiance has pulled back the curtain on an alleged extortion racket operating under the veneer of law enforcement.
As the Vigilance Bureau tightens the net and more skeletons tumble out, the ED finds itself battling not just allegations, but a severe erosion of credibility.
The hunter, once feared, it seems, is now cornered.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
