ED officer interrogated by VACB in bribery case

A Directorate of Enforcement (ED) officer booked in a bribery case appeared before the Kochi unit of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) for interrogation on Tuesday.

Shekhar Kumar, assistant director of the Kochi unit of the ED, was interrogated for hours. He was summoned by the VACB after the Kerala High Court granted him anticipatory bail earlier this month.

Mr. Shekhar Kumar turned up at the VACB office in Kathrikadavu along with his lawyer at around 10.30 a.m. During the interrogation, which lasted till evening, he reportedly denied having demanded a bribe. He also claimed that he doesn’t know the other two accused – Wilson Varghese and Mukesh Kumar, who had been arrested in the case. The interrogation is likely to continue in the coming days, said VACB sources.

The VACB registered the case and arrested three persons on the charge of attempting to take a bribe of ₹2 crore from a businessperson to allegedly get him off the hook in a an ED case. The case was registered on a complaint by a Kollam-based man who runs a cashew export-import firm. As per the VACB remand report, the ED officer was the key accused.

According to the VACB, the businessperson was summoned to the Kochi unit of the ED in 2024 on the grounds that his firm’s turnover was very high and that accounts had been forged to mask money laundering. He was then demanded to produce documents dating back years and was threatened to register a case and imprison him, said the remand report. Shortly thereafter, the second accused, Wilson, contacted the businessperson with an offer to sort out his ED trouble by paying ₹2 crore to the first accused, stated the remand report.