How investigators traced Madhu Koda’s hawala connect

ED officials found in his possession travellers' cheques in excess of Rs 6 lakh. Many of these cheques had been countersigned, which meant they were as good as currency. With the hawala business in a slump following the liberalisation of foreign exchange rules, the man was clearly carrying money abroad to launder it. The question ED officials needed to answer was: whose money was it?

But they were obstructed. A top minister in the Maharashtra government, originally from north India and related to this person, told them to go easy. ED didn't close the case, the man didn't go to jail: he was, however, questioned intensively.

Half a dozen politicians

The directorate is now in a better position to answer the questions raised then. Quiet investigations revealed the money belonged to half a dozen politicians. Painstaking research into mobile communication and intelligence gathering led ED to where it is today -- getting ready to arrest former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda and some of his friends.

The first five years of Koda's life as a BJP legislator were uneventful: he used this time to consolidate relationships. But elections came around in 2005 and the BJP turned down Koda's claim of a nomination. He contested as an Independent from his old constituency and won.

This was the time Koda -- along with friends Kamlesh Singh and Bandhu Tirkey -- discovered he too had some value. Koda agreed to support a BJP-led government led by Arjun Munda, taking over as the minister of mines. But Munda's government lasted only till September 2006 when Koda and his friends dislodged the NDA government to pave way for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government with Koda at its head.