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PoE arrested in nursing recruitment scam in Kerala

Adolfus is the first accused in one of the four cases involving cheating of nurses to the tune of Rs3 billion.

Trivandrum — The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday arrested Ernakulam Protector of Emigrants (PoE) Adolfus Lawrence in connection with the scam related to the recruitment of nurses to Kuwait Health Ministry.

Adolfus is the first accused in one of the four cases involving cheating of nurses to the tune of Rs3 billion. He is accused of conniving with Al Zarafa Travel and Manpower Consultants at Cochin in collecting excessive service charge from nurses recruited to the Gulf country.

He was arrested on the basis of a statement given by an official of the recruitment firm that they had given Rs300,000 to him. Adolfus was summoned to the Cochin office of the CBI and arrested. H will be produced before the court on Tuesday.

The recruitment firm is the second accused in the case and its owner Uthup Varghese the third accused. Uthup, who has been denied anticipatory bail by the state high court, is still at large. The CBI, which has already issued a look out notice for him, is planning to seek the help of Interpol in arresting him.

The CBI found that Al Zarafa, which was awarded a deal to recruit 1,200 nurses to the Kuwait Health Ministry, had collected Rs1.95 million from each nurse as against the mandatory service charge of Rs19,500 without giving any receipts to the applicants.

One of the applicants had lodged a complaint with PoE about the illegal collection of the service charge by the recruitment agency. However, Adolfus forwarded the complaint to the agency instead of taking action on them. The recruitment firm allegedly threatened the complainant and forced her to withdraw her complaint.