KOCHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Monday told the NIA Court here that the probe being carried out abroad as part of the Thiruvananthapuram gold smuggling case is not as simple as in famous movie Akkare Akkare Akkare in which the characters of Mohanlal and Sreenivasan as CIDs visit the US to trace the missing golden royal crown.
Prosecutor Arjun Ambalapatta, who appeared for NIA, said this when bail petitions of seven accused persons, including Swapna Suresh and Sarith P S, were considered by the court. One of the main arguments of defence counsel was that international links as alleged by NIA was not mentioned in the chargesheet filed in the case. “The investigation conducted abroad is a time-consuming process.
We have already identified the jewellers from whom the gold was procured for smuggling into India. We are tracking the reverse hawala channel used to fund the procurement of gold. The probe abroad has to be carried out under the supervision of UAE authorities,” he said.
“Using smuggled gold for financing terrorist activities is not required to invoke terrorism charges against accused under Section 15 of the UAPA.” According to NIA, apart from hief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s letter to the PM to conduct a detailed probe into Thiruvananthapuram gold smuggling incident, there was also an alert from the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB) in November 2019 regarding gold smuggling incidents.