KOCHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing money laundering linked with the 2020 gold smuggling case started analysing emails and WhatsApp chats of accused persons including Swapna Suresh.
As part of it, ED has obtained email dumps of the accused persons from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which arrested Swapna and Sarith PS first.
"We had approached the court to receive the email dumps of the accused from NIA. Following the court's directive, email dumps were provided to us for investigation. This procedure was started before Swapna gave the confidential statement to the magistrate. Swapna and Sarith claimed there is evidence related to the case in their emails and WhatsApp chats. We have started analysing these data as part of the probe," an ED source said.
In 2020, ED had examined the WhatsApp chats of then principal secretary M Sivasankar and Swapna and the agency could find the involvement of the bureaucrat. It was following the analysis of chats, ED had found that the money seized from Swapna's lockers belonged to Sivasankar. There were also WhatsApp chats between Sivasankar and his chartered accountant Venugopal regarding opening lockers for Swapna.
Meanwhile, ED is likely to record the statement of Sarith soon. Last week, the agency had recorded a statement of Swapna at its office in Kochi. Based on the fresh statement given by Swapna, we have to record Sarith’s statement as well, an officer said.