A former Indian Administrative Service officer was arrested on Monday in Gujarat’s Dahod district for his alleged role in a scam that led to diversion of government grants worth Rs 18.6 crore to bank accounts of six fake offices managed by racketeers, reported The Indian Express.

The former Gujarat-cadre officer, identified as BD Nimana, has been remanded to police custody till December 4 by a district court. Nimana had taken voluntary retirement from civil services in February.

“He was arrested for allegedly helping other accused in carrying out the scam when he was the project administrator of the state government’s Tribal Area Sub Plan for Dahod between 2019 and 2022,” Superintendent of Police Rajdeepsinh Zala told PTI.

Nimana’s arrest comes nearly a month after a similar scam in Gujarat’s Chhota Udepur district was busted on October 26. At least Rs 4.16 crore of government grants were diverted to racketeers.

The police had then arrested a man named Sandeep Rajput, his accomplice Ankit Suthar and five others. Rajput had set up six fake offices in the name of the executive engineer with the irrigation department while Suthar opened bank accounts to which the money was diverted.

“The fraud was going on since 2018 [and] Ninama cleared 82 out of a total of 100 bogus proposals during his tenure between 2019 and 2022,” Zala said to PTI.

Rajput and Suthar named Ninama as an accused during interrogation, The Indian Express reported.

“All the offices were operated by Rajput, who posed as a Class I executive engineer,” Zala said. “They received mainly tribal grants given by the government, which included performing irrigation-related tasks like installing taps and wells in people’s homes.”