CBI arrests main accused in Rs 300-crore Kerala nursing recruitment scam

Kochi: The CBI arrested Mailakkattu Uthup Varghese, 50, key accused in the Rs 300-crore nursing recruitment scam, from the Nedumbassery airport here on Wednesday.   

Later, he was remanded in judicial custody by the Ernakulam CBI court till Thursday. Varghese, a native of Puthuppally against whom the Interpol had earlier issued a red corner notice, was taken into custody by the waiting CBI sleuths when he flew in by an Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi which landed here at 3.10 am.

Varghese, who was hiding in Kuwait and other West Asian countries for over two years, had to return after the Kerala High Court on Tuesday gave him time till March 30 to surrender before the investigation officer. Earlier, his anticipatory bail plea was rejected both by the High Court and the Supreme Court.

He was produced before the CBI court, Ernakulam, around 3 p.m. The CBI filed a petition seeking further investigation, though a chargesheet against Varghese  and other accused in the case was filed last month. The agency  sought his custody  for two days.

The petition filed by the CBI seeking his custody and also the plea by Varghese seeking bail will be considered on Thursday.

“Varghese needs to be questioned to unearth the end use of money extorted from the nursing emigrants and also the blank cheques and signed stamp papers taken from them,” the petition filed by the CBI stated.

While Varghese, owner of Al Zarafa Travels and Manpower Consultants Pvt Ltd, is the second accused in the case, Lawrence Adolphus, who was earlier the Protector of Emigrants (PoE), is the main accused.

The CBI had filed the chargesheet in the case on March 30, 2015. According to it, Al Zarafa carried out the recruitment under a contract with a Kuwait-based agency for recruiting 1,200 nurses for the Ministry of Health, Kuwait.

However, the travel agency “illegally” collected '19.5 lakh from each candidate  though the agreement with the Kuwait government was to charge only '19,500. The agency in its probe found that he had amassed nearly '300 crore through the fraud.

The investigation also revealed that the travel agency sent a major portion of the amount to Kuwait and Dubai through ‘hawala’ channel with the assistance of one Suresh Babu and Abdul Nasser. The charge against Adolphus is that he failed to take action against the recruitment agencies in spite of complaints, and allowed them to continue with the fraudulent activities.  Varghese’s wife Susan is another accused in the case.