The Central Bureau of Investigation has booked the Protector of Emigrants in the Union Labour Ministry here for allegedly colluding with a private agency that cheated 1,200 nurses recruited for the Kuwait government of over ₹100 crore.

The CBI has filed a first information report in which L Adolfus, the PoE, has been named the first accused and the Al-Zarafa Travel and Manpower Consultants, owned by Uthup Varghese, as the second accused.

The agency had been hired by the Kuwait Health Ministry to recruit 1,200 nurses from Kerala. The agency, which should have charged a service fee of ₹19,500 from the recruited nurses in accordance with the norms of the PoE, was found to have charged ₹19.5 lakh from them, whose salary in Kuwait would be around ₹1.5 lakh.

The PoE, who has been booked under Prevention of Corruption Act and other criminal provisions, allegedly colluded with the recruitment agency in fleecing the recruits.

CBI teams raided the Protector of Emigrants office in Kochi and Adolfus’s house in Kollam as well as the agency’s offices. Earlier, an Income Tax team had seized unaccounted money amounting to ₹4.7 crore.

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