SIT questions actor Dino Morea, brother Santino again over Mithi River desilting scam
The SIT had earlier booked 13 people, including three BMC officials, for causing wrongful loss worth more than Rs 65.54 crore to the Mumbai civic body in connection with the scam.
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Dino Morea is reportedly closely linked to arrested accused and alleged middleman Ketan Kadam (Express photo By Ganesh Shirsekar)The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) is questioning actor Dino Morea and his brother Santino Morea again on Wednesday for their alleged links with people suspected to be involved in the multi-crore Mithi river desilting scam.
On Monday, the SIT questioned the two men for nearly eight hours in connection with the case. They were then asked to be present before the investigators on Wednesday. Dino and Santino appeared before the SIT on Wednesday afternoon.
Dino Morea is reportedly closely linked to arrested accused and alleged middleman Ketan Kadam of Vodar India Ltd. Officers with the EOW suspect he may have helped the accused influence contractors.
Earlier this month, the SIT had booked 13 people, including five private contractors and three Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials, for causing wrongful loss to the civic body worth more than Rs 65.54 crore in the alleged scam. Desilting work contracts worth nearly Rs 1,100 crore are under the scanner.
Later, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Mumbai, too, initiated a money laundering probe against BMC officials and contractors, among others, for their alleged role in financial irregularities linked to the civic body’s Mithi River desilting scam.
EOW SIT officials came across various financial irregularities pertaining to contracts for desilting the river between 2021-22 and 2022-23. These irregularities were related to the transportation of sludge and its dumping on the ground. EOW found that the contractors submitted nine fake Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs).
The Mumbai police named BMC assistant engineer Prashant Ramugade; deputy chief engineers Ganesh Bendre and Prashant Tayshette; Deepak Mohan, Kishore Menon, Jay Joshi, Ketan Kadam and Bhupendra Purohit, the directors of Acute Designing, Kailash Construction Company, NA Construction, Nikhil Construction, and JRS Infrastructure, respectively, as accused.
What the SIT FIR says
As per the Mumbai police FIR, the accused BMC officers allegedly misused their positions for wrongful financial gains. The FIR further alleges that they conspired to defraud the BMC financially by including terms and conditions as mentioned in the contract agreement regarding the silt pusher machine and the multipurpose amphibious pontoon machine. They allegedly colluded with Mohan Menon of Matprop Company, Joshi of Virgo Specialties, Ketan Kadam, and other partners and directors of Vodar India LLP, and contractor Bhupendra Purohit, among others.
“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 Acute Designs, Kailash Construction Company, N A Construction, Nikhil Construction Company, JRS Infrastructure and others, provided and helped contractors take disadvantage,” the EOW officer stated in the FIR.
Also, the FIR 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 EOW SIT has already arrested two middlemen — Ketan Kadam and Jay Joshi — in the case. Joshi is the owner of Virgo Specialties Pvt Ltd, and Kadam is from Voder India LLP. EOW officials seized electronic devices from Kadam and copies of posting orders of officials in the BMC’s SWD department.
The police have also received notes of entries of money received from the contractors of the Mithi River desilting work. Investigators suspect that these are entries of the commissions. SIT officials have also found raw draft copies of BMC tenders from the seized devices.
According to the EOW, Kadam was a hotelier before 2019, and he had no experience in desilting work. However, since 2020, he has been involved in inking deals involving Matprop company with various contractors for the disputed silt pusher machine and multipurpose amphibious pontoon machine and in making rental agreements for the said machinery on behalf of Virgo Specialties Pvt Ltd and Voder India LLP, even though they are not related, making the contractors pay his salaries and forcing them to accept the rental by demanding more than the cost of the machine.
Although Kadam is not a partner or director in Virgo Specialties or Voder India, he allegedly signed the rental agreement as an authorised person and has kept the information about why he signed such agreements hidden. The EOW also found some records in coded language in the seized electronic device.
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