Thiruvananthapuram: The accused in the BSNL Engineers Cooperative Society fraud bought properties worth crores of rupees using the money swindled from depositors. All the 11 accused in the case have bought properties in city and rural limits of Thiruvananthapuram and neighbouring districts, said Sajad, DSP, investigating officer.
The crime branch special investigation team probing the case received the information about the properties while interrogating the former president of the society AR Gopinathan Nair, who was arrested a few days back from Kottarakkara by the crime branch.
The cooperative department has already attached properties owned by Gopinathan Nair, and the crime branch team is on a mission to identify all the properties registered in their names and benami names to initiate proceedings to attach them as well.
Gopinathan Nair is being questioned by the crime branch and the probe team will move a custody application to take PR Moorthi, who was the member of the directors’ board of the society and also the former deputy general manager of BSNL, into custody. On Tuesday night Moorthi was arrested and the probe team believes that Moorthi might have played a key role along with Nair in the fraud. The former secretary of the society and former post divisional engineer of BSNL KV Pradeep was also arrested earlier.
So far, three people were arrested over the fraud and eight others are still absconding. The bail applications of all the accused have been rejected by the court.
“The fraud worth crores of rupees was an organised crime committed by the accused as they violated the established legal framework of an organisation. The investigation has been progressing and there could be more accused in the case,” said Sajad.
Hundreds of people have lost lakhs of rupees deposited at the society. In the inquiry conducted by the cooperative department, a fraud worth Rs 44 crore was reported and the cooperative registrar sent a request to the city police commissioner demanding to conduct a probe after registering a case.