"Apart from Rs 23 lakh we recovered from the doctor's house in Mugalivakkam, Rs. 26 lakh in currency was seized from the bank locker of his wife. Jewels worth nearly Rs 16 lakh were also recovered from her locker," a senior IT official told this newspaper on Sunday. The investigators had found the cash bundles stuffed in the lofts when they raided doctor's house immediately after he was arrested by Mumbai police. A kidney donor had complained to the Mumbai police that the doctor had cheated him by not paying the promised amount of Rs. 4 lakh for his kidney. IT officials have been questioning the family members of Dr. Ravichandran for the last couple of days. "We questioned his wife also. We are sure that he had conducted scores of kidney transplants charging something between Rs 10 lakh and 15 lakh per operation. We are trying to find out where he had parked his funds," the official noted.
The IT sleuths who now have a clear picture about the doctor's modus operandi feel that the doctor could have lot of benami investments. The Mumbai police had picked up the doctor's brother- in- law along with another surgeon for further enquiries.
The arrested doctor was functioning from St Thomas hospital in St. Thomas Mount and Bharati Rajaa Hospital in T Nagar. Following the arrest, the government had cancelled the kidney transplant licences given to these hospitals.
According to IT official, Dr. Ravichandran had one guest house and many rented bungalows in Nandambakkam for lodging the kidney patients arriving from foreign countries. "He kept a doctor in one of these guest house just to look after residential patients," the officer noted. "He had a nine member team to take care of the surgeries. As soon as the kidney is removed from the donor's body, it will be replanted into the patient's body. The surgeries are usually conducted early in the morning,' he added. It may be recalled that scores of kidney patients who were staying in the guest houses in Nandambakkam had vanished within two days of the news of the arrest of the doctor.