Officials of the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday carried out raids at two places in Kottayam district in connection with its probe into the money laundering case against Al Zarafa Travel and Manpower Consultants, an accused in the nurses’ recruitment scam.
Sources said the raids, conducted simultaneously in the house of a document writer at Puthupally and a bakery unit at Manarcaud yielded crucial evidences on the financial transactions made by M.V. Varghese alias Uthup, proprietor of Al Zarafa. While the document writer was handing the property dealings by Mr. Varghese, he had invested in the Manarcaud unit of the bakery chain.
“The focus is on whether Uthup had diverted money he is allged to have collected illegally for recruitments to Kuwait to different businesses. The scope of the investigation also covers suspected money laundering activities of the accused”, said an official.
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During the raid, which started around 7.30 a.m, the sleuths also collected the statement of the document writer regarding the details of property dealings by Uthup. From the evidences collected so far, the agency suspects that Uthup diverted the defrauded money to buy properties across the State. Uthup’s residence at Puthupally was found locked when the ED team went there.
The ED is also probing the possibility of hawala transactions by the agency in violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act.