Official charged in Gulf job scam

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has reportedly framed charges against a top emigration official for cheating Gulf- bound nurses one and a half years after his arrest.But the investigation remains inconclusive as the kingpin remains elusive.Sacked Protector of Emigrants (PoE) Adolphus Lawrence is the first defendant in the case of cheating hundreds of unsuspecting nurses migrating to Kuwait in 2015 to the tune of more than Rs2bn.Others include Al Zarafa Travel and Manpower Consultants proprietor Uthuppu Varghese and his wife Susan.They face charges of defrauding over 1,200 nurses from Kerala recruited for the emirate’s health ministry.They allegedly collected over a period of three months Rs1.95mn from every nurse getting hired for plum jobs overseas instead of a legally permitted fee of Rs19,500.The scam led to India freezing all recruitments of nurses by private agencies for overseas assignments, severely hitting their migration to the Gulf.The foreign ministry also entrusted the job with Kerala’s state-run Norka-ROOTS and Overseas Development and Employment Promotion Consultants (Odepec) and Overseas Manpower Corp Limited (OMCL) of neighbouring Tamil Nadu state.They are allowed to collect a service charge of up to a maximum of Rs20,000, and the employers need to register with eMigrate, the online platform of the overseas employment division of India’s foreign ministry for recruiters, and place their orders.Lawrence was arrested in June 2015 for facilitating the extortion, but Varghese, 49, is still at large, though the global law enforcing agency Interpol had a red corner notice against him.The notice says he faces charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, the criminal conspiracy by the public servant to commit criminal misconduct under Prevention of Corruption Act and collection of excess fees from emigrants.He had fled to Kuwait after the CBI raided his office in the port city of Kochi, seized Rs40mn in cash besides several ‘incriminating documents’ and issued an arrest warrant against him.His attempt to obtain an anticipatory bail from the High Court and Supreme Court did not succeed.The apex court asked the fugitive to surrender as he had absconded to Kuwait without seeking legal remedy.Varghese maintains that he was ready to co-operate with the CBI only if they withdrew the red notice against him.During the questioning, his employees had told the CBI sleuths that the PoE, an official under the Overseas Indians Affairs Ministry responsible for safeguarding interests of the migrants, had received bribe from Varghese.The exploitation came to light when several nurses refused to return from war-torn countries like Iraq, Libya and Yemen, despite repeated calls by the Kerala government.They were reluctant to come back as they had to repay massive debts back home that they paid to the recruiters.Then-chief minister Oommen Chandy promptly brought this to the attention of federal minister Sushma Swaraj who banned recruitments of nurses by private agencies.The investigators say this was just tip of an iceberg as thousands of nurses were recruited from the state, including those working in the major cities outside, every year.