KOCHI: The Customs on Tuesday arrested Santhosh Eapen, the managing director of Unitac Builders, in connection with the dollar smuggling case. Unitac was entrusted with the construction of Life Mission flats for the homeless in Thrissur district.
Eapen is the fifth accused in the case which is being probed by the Customs. The case pertains to the smuggling of dollars from the country by Egyptian national and ex-finance head of the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram Khaled Al Shoukary.
The Customs found that Khaled smuggled 1.9 lakh USD (equivalent to Rs 1.3 crore) in August 2019 to Cairo via Oman with the help of Swapna Suresh, P S Sarith and former principal secretary M Sivasankar.
However, Eapen was granted bail by the court as the Customs did not oppose his bail application.
Customs officials booked Eapen as he had allegedly paid a huge amount of commission to the other accused in dollars to obtain the contract of the Life Mission project.