Kerala nursing recruitment scam: Uthup Varghese had been on run for two years

Kottayam: Nursing recruitment fraud case accused Uthup Varghese, picked up from the Cochin airport, has been evading arrest for the past two years despite lookout notices by both the CBI and the Interpol.

The CBI registered a case against him in 2015 March, and there were unconfirmed reports that the Interpol had detained him in August last year in Abu Dhabi. He enjoyed high-level connections.

"Mr Uthup is close to a Malayali businessman who used his influence to help him to hide in Dubai,” alleges John M. Kuriakose, his neighbour, who insists the nurses he recruited to Libya landed in trouble in 2007.

He claims political interventions helped him continue his business embezzling more than Rs 300 crore while hiring nurses for the health ministry of Kuwait.

Uthup Varghese, 50, alias M. V. Uthup, son of M. T. Varghese of Mylakkad, was a local life insurance agent in Puthuppally early 1990s.

Sources allege he had the patronage of the Congress party and in 1999 he married a nurse, following which he developed an interest in the recruiting business.

He later joined a private company, Havana Cafe, which he left in 2006 and started recruiting nurses for overseas assignments through his Al Sarafa based in Kuwait with an office in Kochi.

He got the ‘commander’ title from the Jacobite church pointing to his standing in the society. He was also formerly a member of the Puthuppally-based Aashrya Trust.