Thiruvananthapuram: The Enforcement Directorate has seized property deeds and other documents from the bank locker of Bineesh Kodiyeri’s friend and Dubai businessman Al Jassam. It has seized Al Jassam’s phone, too.
Bineesh is the son of Kerala CPM secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
The ED had opened the locker that was in the name of Al Jassam at the Nedumangad branch of Union Bank. It had also raided Al Jassam's home on Wednesday.
Al Jassam's father, a native of Vattakulam in Aruvikkara, was earlier in the Gulf. His brothers are also in the Gulf.
According to the ED, Al Jassam owns many businesses, including a manpower consultancy. The investigation was based on the information that Jassam had made large financial interventions using his friendship with Bineesh.
Al Jassam had been using several luxury cars registered in Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Puducherry. It is being investigated whether these are the benami property of Bineesh.
Gold, documents in locker
An ED team examined the bank locker of Abdul Jabbar, who too is a native of Vattakulam in Aruvikkara on Thursday. He is also said to be close to Bineesh. His locker was also in the Nedumangad branch of Union Bank.
The team checked the 70 sovereigns gold and documents of assets it found in the locker. It took copies of the documents and kept them along with the gold back in the locker. The examination was carried out in the presence of Abdul Jabbar.
The four-member ED team had arrived for the inspection in the afternoon.
'Bineesh's family threatened'
Meanwhile, the ED on Thursday ended its search at the residence of Bineesh Kodiyeri amid allegations of illegal detention of his family members and bid to plant 'evidence' by the agency.
Acting on a complaint by a relative that the Enforcement Directorate officials allegedly refused to allow milk or food to be given to Bineesh's child, the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights ordered the agency to make sure that the rights of children were not affected by its probe.
Taking cognisance of the complaint, it also ordered the district police chief to look into it and register a case if there was any violation of law.
Bineesh, arrested on October 29 in a money laundering case linked to a drug seizure in Karnataka, is now under the custody of the ED.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, when asked by reporters whether he considered the searches as politically motivated, said they were part of a probe and he cannot react without knowing the details.
He, however, said the family can complain in case there were any lapses in the process of investigation.
Earlier in the day, Bineesh's wife alleged that the ED officials threatened and forced her to sign certain documents in which they claimed to have recovered a credit card in the name of Mohammed Anoop, an accused in the drug case in Bengaluru.
The ED has alleged that the "drug peddler" in the case, Mohammed Anoop, was a "benamidar" of Bineesh.
Its probe stems from a Narcotics Control Bureau investigation that claimed to have busted an ecstasy pills drug trafficking racket in Karnataka in August with the arrest of Anoop and two others.
Bineesh has maintained that he knew Anoop and his family and the latter had borrowed money from him and some others to set up a restaurant in Bengaluru a few years ago.
