Reporter TV MD Anto Augustine Arrested in Abkari Case as Messi Probe and Old Forest Charges Close In
From Our Correspondents
KOCHI / WAYANAD: Kerala Excise officials arrested Anto Augustine, 38, Managing Director and Managing Editor of Malayalam news channel Reporter TV, in the early hours of Thursday, 17 September 2026, from the channel’s office at Kalamassery in Ernakulam. He was booked under Sections 55(a), 55(i) and 58 of the Kerala Abkari Act for alleged possession of liquor far in excess of the legal limit.
The arrest followed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) search the previous day at his ancestral house in Vazhavatta, Muttil South village, Vythiri taluk, Wayanad. Officials reported recovery of a large stock variously described as about 43 litres of foreign liquor and seven litres of wine, or roughly 67 litres in all, besides homemade wine and, in a separate excise report, 12.75 litres of alleged counterfeit liquor from a first-floor room. Possession beyond the permitted personal limit is a non-bailable offence; conviction under Section 55(a) can attract imprisonment of up to ten years and a fine of at least ₹1 lakh.
An Excise team led by Assistant Commissioner Baiju took Augustine into custody around 5 a.m. after he initially demanded a hard copy of the FIR. He was sent for medical examination at Aluva District Hospital and is to be produced before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court at Sulthan Bathery. Augustine told reporters he had never consumed alcohol, was in Kochi when the Wayanad house was searched, and did not know about the stock. “I had handed over all documents related to Messi. Now the excise has come up with a case,” he said.
The liquor seizure was incidental to a larger SIT probe into alleged financial irregularities around a failed plan to bring Lionel Messi and the Argentina football team to Kerala. Police have alleged that Reporter Broadcasting Private Limited, with Augustine as authorised signatory, inserted “illegal and fake” details into an agreement with the Argentina Football Association before December 2024, intending to cheat the State government and the public. The SIT searched the channel headquarters and residences of the Augustine brothers on 16 September. The same day, police also registered an FIR against Augustine over alleged circulation of fabricated documents claiming Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan had contracted a second marriage in Karnataka in 2012.
The brothers and the Muttil cases
Anto Augustine is one of three brothers — Roji, Jose Kutty and Anto — of Moongananiyil house, Vazhavatta, long associated with timber trade under the Surya Timbers banner. They are key accused in the 2020–21 Muttil tree-felling episode in South Wayanad. Investigators say they used a short-lived Revenue Department order of October 2020, later withdrawn in February 2021, to fell protected rosewood and teak from assigned lands meant for farmers and tribals. Charge-sheets speak of 41 rosewood trees and about 204.635 cubic metres of rosewood valued at around ₹8 crore moved in late 2020 and early 2021. DNA tests on seized timber indicated some trees were centuries old. Revenue, Forest and Police wings registered scores of cases; an SIT later filed 36 separate charge-sheets naming the brothers and others, including village officers. The brothers were arrested in July 2021 and spent 80 to 100 days in custody.
A linked cheating case, registered by Ambalamedu police on a complaint by M.M. Aliyar of Malabar Timber Industries, alleges the brothers collected about ₹1.4 crore in advances for 54 pieces of timber that turned out to be illegally felled rosewood and teak from the Meppadi range, sold without valid permits. The Kerala High Court in July 2026 upheld the cheating charge after quashing criminal breach of trust. On 15 September 2026 the High Court dismissed a plea to stay the Chottanikkara magistrate trial until the Wayanad forest final report was filed, and directed the trial to begin on 22 September and finish within six months. Jose Kutty and Anto had surrendered in August after non-bailable warrants. Roji has been described in court as a history-sheeter facing dozens of similar cases.
When a newsroom becomes a shield
In July 2023 the brothers took control of Reporter TV, then in financial distress, and relaunched it with Anto as MD and managing editor. The channel promptly ran defensive coverage of the Muttil cases and counter-attacks on rival houses that had reported the felling. Senior journalists who once criticised illegal tree-cutting in Wayanad now work under the same roof as the accused owners. That inversion is the point. A television licence and a prime-time studio can launder reputation, drown inconvenient facts in volume, and convert criminal exposure into “media persecution.” The Messi sponsorship bid, the liquor stock at the family house, the pending timber-cheating trial and the new FIR over documents targeting the Chief Minister sit on the same pattern: business and political theatre conducted through a news brand.
Kerala’s media market rewards spectacle. When owners themselves stand accused of forest crime, cheating and now Abkari offences, the channel they operate is not a neutral observer. It is an asset. Viewers are entitled to ask whether the news they watch is investigation or insurance — and whether those who once named the tree-felling now mute themselves because the paymaster owns the microphone. Courts will decide the charges. The public can still decide whether a news channel should be allowed to function as a cover for unfinished cases.
Reporter TV MD Anto Augustine Arrested in Abkari Case as Messi Probe and Old Forest Charges Close In
KOCHI / WAYANAD: Kerala Excise officials arrested Anto Augustine, 38, Managing Director and Managing Editor of Malayalam news channel Reporter TV, in the early hours of Thursday, 17 September 2026, from the channel’s office at Kalamassery in Ernakulam. He was booked under Sections 55(a), 55(i) and 58 of the Kerala Abkari Act for alleged possession of liquor far in excess of the legal limit.
The arrest followed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) search the previous day at his ancestral house in Vazhavatta, Muttil South village, Vythiri taluk, Wayanad. Officials reported recovery of a large stock variously described as about 43 litres of foreign liquor and seven litres of wine, or roughly 67 litres in all, besides homemade wine and, in a separate excise report, 12.75 litres of alleged counterfeit liquor from a first-floor room. Possession beyond the permitted personal limit is a non-bailable offence; conviction under Section 55(a) can attract imprisonment of up to ten years and a fine of at least ₹1 lakh.
An Excise team led by Assistant Commissioner Baiju took Augustine into custody around 5 a.m. after he initially demanded a hard copy of the FIR. He was sent for medical examination at Aluva District Hospital and is to be produced before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court at Sulthan Bathery. Augustine told reporters he had never consumed alcohol, was in Kochi when the Wayanad house was searched, and did not know about the stock. “I had handed over all documents related to Messi. Now the excise has come up with a case,” he said.
The liquor seizure was incidental to a larger SIT probe into alleged financial irregularities around a failed plan to bring Lionel Messi and the Argentina football team to Kerala. Police have alleged that Reporter Broadcasting Private Limited, with Augustine as authorised signatory, inserted “illegal and fake” details into an agreement with the Argentina Football Association before December 2024, intending to cheat the State government and the public. The SIT searched the channel headquarters and residences of the Augustine brothers on 16 September. The same day, police also registered an FIR against Augustine over alleged circulation of fabricated documents claiming Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan had contracted a second marriage in Karnataka in 2012.
The brothers and the Muttil cases
Anto Augustine is one of three brothers — Roji, Jose Kutty and Anto — of Moongananiyil house, Vazhavatta, long associated with timber trade under the Surya Timbers banner. They are key accused in the 2020–21 Muttil tree-felling episode in South Wayanad. Investigators say they used a short-lived Revenue Department order of October 2020, later withdrawn in February 2021, to fell protected rosewood and teak from assigned lands meant for farmers and tribals. Charge-sheets speak of 41 rosewood trees and about 204.635 cubic metres of rosewood valued at around ₹8 crore moved in late 2020 and early 2021. DNA tests on seized timber indicated some trees were centuries old. Revenue, Forest and Police wings registered scores of cases; an SIT later filed 36 separate charge-sheets naming the brothers and others, including village officers. The brothers were arrested in July 2021 and spent 80 to 100 days in custody.
A linked cheating case, registered by Ambalamedu police on a complaint by M.M. Aliyar of Malabar Timber Industries, alleges the brothers collected about ₹1.4 crore in advances for 54 pieces of timber that turned out to be illegally felled rosewood and teak from the Meppadi range, sold without valid permits. The Kerala High Court in July 2026 upheld the cheating charge after quashing criminal breach of trust. On 15 September 2026 the High Court dismissed a plea to stay the Chottanikkara magistrate trial until the Wayanad forest final report was filed, and directed the trial to begin on 22 September and finish within six months. Jose Kutty and Anto had surrendered in August after non-bailable warrants. Roji has been described in court as a history-sheeter facing dozens of similar cases.
When a newsroom becomes a shield
In July 2023 the brothers took control of Reporter TV, then in financial distress, and relaunched it with Anto as MD and managing editor. The channel promptly ran defensive coverage of the Muttil cases and counter-attacks on rival houses that had reported the felling. Senior journalists who once criticised illegal tree-cutting in Wayanad now work under the same roof as the accused owners. That inversion is the point. A television licence and a prime-time studio can launder reputation, drown inconvenient facts in volume, and convert criminal exposure into “media persecution.” The Messi sponsorship bid, the liquor stock at the family house, the pending timber-cheating trial and the new FIR over documents targeting the Chief Minister sit on the same pattern: business and political theatre conducted through a news brand.
Kerala’s media market rewards spectacle. When owners themselves stand accused of forest crime, cheating and now Abkari offences, the channel they operate is not a neutral observer. It is an asset. Viewers are entitled to ask whether the news they watch is investigation or insurance — and whether those who once named the tree-felling now mute themselves because the paymaster owns the microphone. Courts will decide the charges. The public can still decide whether a news channel should be allowed to function as a cover for unfinished cases.
