ED Raids Over 15 Locations In Mumbai And Kochi In Multi-Crore Mithi River Desilting Scam

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday (6 June) conducted raids at over 15 locations across Mumbai and Kochi in connection with the alleged multi-crore Mithi River desilting scam involving Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials, contractors, and middlemen, the Indian Express reported.

The raids targeted premises linked to 13 accused named in the FIR filed last month by the Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW), including residences and offices of BMC engineers, private contractors, and middlemen.

Besides Mumbai, search operations are also being held in Kerala, as one of the companies that provided the desilting machinery, Matprop Technical Services Pvt Ltd, is based in Kochi.

The EOW had earlier booked 13 people, including five contractors and three BMC officials, for allegedly causing a wrongful loss of over Rs 65.54 crore to the civic body through forged documents and irregularities in desilting contracts valued at nearly Rs 1,100 crore. 

“The accused BMC officer of the Storm Water Drains (SWD) division of the Municipal Corporation, without verifying the authenticity of the dumping sites mentioned in the false and fabricated MOU submitted by the directors of the contractor companies... provided and helped contractors take disadvantage,” the EOW FIR was quoted as saying by IE.

The FIR reportedly added that officials of the SWD division caused financial loss to the BMC by approving bills based on fake documents related to the weighbridge and log sheets.

The ED is now probing potential money laundering based on the EOW’s findings.

The SIT has already arrested middlemen Ketan Kadam and Jay Joshi, and seized electronic evidence linked to the scam. 

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