A society that began as a housing co-operative, and what makes a co-operative a multi-State one

Background

The Enforcement Directorate searched at least eleven places in the State and in Tamil Nadu in a case about a co-operative society. BLM is the short name of the Bharath Lajhna Multi State Co-operative Society, the body at the centre of that case. It began at Chennai in the year 2006 as a housing co-operative society. Its members are spread across Keralam, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and the figures for its branches and members come only from accounts of the inquiry. The agency acts in such a matter under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, shortened to PMLA in practice. A society of this kind works in more than one State, and that is why those words sit in its very name. An inquiry by the Crime Branch of the State police is going on in the same matter. Searches were held in cities that include Kochi, Kozhikode and the Tamil Nadu capital.