The agency has recorded AC Moideen's statement under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
AC Moideen. (Wikimedia)
Senior CPI(M) leader AC Moideen, was on Monday, 11 September, interrogated for over nine hours by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with its probe into the ₹150 crore Karuvannur Cooperative bank scam, which triggered a political row in Kerala recently.
The MLA reached the ED office in Kochi on Monday morning and produced all the documents sought by the agency.
Addressing the media after the interrogation, Moideen said he will appear again if required.
“… I have fully cooperated with the investigation. I have not done anything wrong. That’s why I had cooperated with the raid also,” he said.
A request has been submitted to the agency to release the frozen bank accounts of his family, he added.
The legislator was summoned by the agency for questioning twice, but this is the first time he appeared before it.
Moideen, 67, was first asked to depose before the investigating officer of the case on 31 August. But he expressed his inability to come and said that he received the summons late. He was later issued a fresh notice to appear before the agency on 4 September.
The case relates to the alleged fraud in the CPI(M)-controlled Karuvannur Cooperative Bank.
The ED has been questioning some people involved in the case since it conducted raids at their premises last month.
The agency has recorded the MLA’s statement under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
ED had earlier issued freeze orders against bank and fixed deposits worth ₹28 lakh of Moideen, the former Kerala minister for cooperation and industries and his wife, apart from the seizure of 36 properties valued at ₹15 crore— “proceeds of crime” in this case.
The ED had claimed its probe found that “on the instructions of certain persons, who were district-level leaders and committee members of a certain political party and governed the bank, loans were disbursed by the bank manager through the agent in cash to non-member benamis by mortgaging properties of poor members without their knowledge and laundered to the benefit of the accused”.
“Many such benami loans were disbursed on the instructions of AC Moideen,” it had alleged in a statement issued on 23 August, a day after the raids were carried out.
Some of those whose premises were raided were identified as Kiran PP, Rahim CM, Shiju MK and Satheesh Kumar P, according to the ED.
The agency had recently arrested Kumar and Kiran. They claimed that Kumar was the kingpin.
This case of alleged fraud, beginning in 2010, in the Thrissur-based Karuvannur Cooperative Bank triggered a political row in Kerala two years ago.
The money laundering case stems from 16 FIRs registered by the Kerala Police (Crime Branch) in Thrissur.
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