ED Raids 15 Places, Including Dino Morea’s Residence, In Mithi River Desilting Scam

According to reports, the searches were carried out at locations linked to contractors and officials suspected of embezzlement in the desilting operations of the Mithi River. These included the premises of Dino Morea, his brother and some others, the sources said.

The ED has started the investigation under the the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on the First Information Report (FIR) registered by the economic offences wing (EOW) of Mumbai police in connection with the alleged irregularities in desilting of the Mithi river that is alleged to have caused a Rs 65 crore loss to the civic body.

Searches were also conducted in Kochi, as one of the companies that supplied desilting equipment to BMC — Matprop Technical Services Pvt Ltd — is based in the city.

The plan to desilt the Mithi river was launched by Mumbai’s civic authorities following the devastating 2005 floods. According to the police complaint, certain BMC officials designed the desilting tenders to favour a particular supplier of machinery. Contractors allegedly generated fraudulently inflated bills, fake work logs and systematically siphoned off public money sanctioned for flood prevention and drainage maintenance.

The EOW has arrested two men — Ketan Kadam and Jayesh Joshi —who allegedly acted as intermediaries in the supply of equipment. The investigation so far has alleged that certain contractors in collusion with BMC officials and contractors, manipulated tenders to include the mandatory use of silt pusher machines and multipurpose amphibious pontoon machines, which were not readily available in India at the time.

Dino Morea and his brother Santino Morea’s name cropped in the case after the investigators found their multiple phone calls to Kadam. They also claimed to have found that Rs 18 lakh were transferred by Kadam to UBO Ridez, a company where Santino Morea is a director.

Earlier, the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena has alleged that Aaditya Thackeray is the mastermind behind the scam. Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Nirupam said, “The whole Mumbai is aware about the relationship between Dino Morea and Aaditya Thackeray. Both the friends often party together. Aaditya Thackeray had awarded Dino Morea a contract to set up open gyms in Mumbai. When the Uddhav Thackeray-led party controlled the BMC till 2022, no contract was awarded to anyone without the permission from Matoshree, (the residence of Uddhav Thackeray).”