MUMBAI, May 8 -- The Mumbai police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) late Tuesday arrested two of the 13 accused in the alleged Mithi River desilting scam, which led to a loss of over Rs.65 crore for the BMC. The arrested accused are Ketan Kadam, the director of Woder India LLP, a Mumbai-based company that provides desilting services; and Jayesh Joshi, who is associated with Virgo Specialties Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based industrial product manufacturer. According to the police, the arrested accused acted as intermediaries in renting out silt pusher machines and multipurpose amphibious dredging equipment supplied by Kochi-based Matprop Technical Services Pvt Ltd. They allegedly charged the BMC an inflated amount for the equipment, in connivance with civic officials. "We have arrested Jay Joshi, 49, of Virgo Specialties Pvt Ltd and Ketan Kadam, 50, of Woder India LLP. They were produced before a court that has sent them to police custody till May 13," said a police officer, who requested anonymity. "We had called them for questioning after registering the offence on Tuesday morning. When we found their answers were unsatisfactory, they were placed under arrest on Tuesday night," added the police officer. HT reached out to Woder India and Virgo Specialties for a reaction, but didn't get a response till the time of going to press. The accused include three BMC officials who, according to the EOW, tailored the tender for the desilting contract to benefit machinery supplier Matprop, whose director, Dipak Mohan, has also been booked in the case. When contacted by HT on Tuesday, Mohan denied that he or his company were involved in the fraud. BMC officials visited Kochi in October 2020 to purchase desilting equipment from Matprop, the police officer said. The company allegedly quoted Rs.3 crore for silt pusher machines and Rs.2 crore for multipurpose amphibious dredging equipment. However, instead of purchasing the machines, the BMC decided to pay the contractors on a per-metric-tonne basis for the silt and dredge removed from the river, officials said. "The BMC's tender even had a mention of the specific machines that should be available to remove the silt, giving a monopoly to Matprop Technical Services, which was the only manufacturer of the machines in the country," said the police officer. "When the contractors approached the company, they directed the contractors to Joshi and Kadam, who, in connivance with Matprop director Dipak Mohan, sold the equipment to contractor Bhupendra Purohit's Tridev Infrastructure," added the police officer. The rent to be paid by the companies for the machines was decided at Rs.4 crore for two years, when the price of the machines was Rs.5 crore, the officer added. Purohit is also an accused in the case....