The Enforcement Directorate on June 6 conducted raids at 16 locations — 15 in Maharashtra and one in Kerala — connected to actor Dino Morea, BMC assistant engineer Prashant Ramugade and others as part of the investigation into money laundering in the alleged Mithi river cleaning scam. The raided persons included contractors, desilting machine suppliers and middlemen.
UBO Ridez, an electric cart company, has Dino’s brother, Santino, as a director alongside the wife of another accused, Ketan Kadam, who was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the police in the Mithi river cleanig scam. Dino, known for his closeness with Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray is not directly involved in the Mithi desilting contract. He had formed a business partnership with one of the contractors for a company operating electric carriages which replaced traditional Victoria horse-carts used by the tourism sector in South Bombay. The discontinued Victoria horse carriages had returned in an electric avatar and in March 2021, the then Maharashtra chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray, had inaugurated these electric carts.
The investigation stems from an FIR filed by the EOW, which had arrested Ketan Kadam and businessman Jay Joshi, owner of Virgo Specialities. Joshi was granted bail in the case on June 5.
The Mithi desilting work has faced allegations of corruption and contractor cartelisation for decades. The EOW’s FIR mentions mainly two allegations. Firstly, it states that contractors deceived the BMC using forged documents regarding silt disposal from Mithi between 2013 and 2021. It also notes the controversial awarding of desilting work to a company after modifying conditions to ensure that only contractors with specific machinery could secure the contract.