KOCHI: Piling pressure on the Pinarayi Vijayan government in Kerala, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is probing the gold smuggling racket, has said kingpin KT Rameez had stayed in the flat booked at the instance of M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to the chief minister, for Swapna Suresh near the state secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram. Sivasankar also has a flat in the same building.
Opposing the bail plea of Swapna, second accused in the gold smuggling case, the NIA on Monday told the Ernakulam Special Court that Rameez had stayed at Swapna’s apartment at Heather Heights after June 30 when the gold consignment arrived from the UAE. It was alleged that Arun Balachandran, former IT fellow of the CM, had booked the flat on the instructions of Sivasankar. The investigation team had seized $8,034 (`6,03,024), 701.5 Oman riyals (`1,36,940) and fixed deposit receipts to the tune of around `51 lakh from Swapna. The team had also recovered `1 crore in cash and 1kg of gold from her bank locker. It seems Swapna has never filed income tax returns, the agency said.
The presence of a large number of US dollar bills besides other cash and investment instruments reveals that she had managed to stash these through smuggling. “During the investigation, Swapna has admitted to her role and guilt. Moreover, she had clearly explained that the fund seized from her is the gratification of the many numbers of the time she has smuggled gold into India with the aid of other accused (sic),” stated NIA.
According to agency, Sarith, first accused, and Swapna were mostly together since June 4 in Thiruvananthapuram. “They had a close circle of friends who include influential people. Sarith, Swapna, Sandeep Nair and Rameez used to meet in various locations beforehand. Sandeep Nair was a frequent visitor to Swapna’s house. While Rameez had stayed (there) to get the smuggled gold released, he had met Swapna, Sarith and Sandeep,” revealed the report.
The NIA made it clear that the phone calls made by Swapna to the Customs officials to get the baggage released from Thiruvananthapuram airport were not at the instance of Rashed Khamis Alshemeili, who was the acting charge d’affaires of the UAE Consulate. After the bag was detained by the Customs, she had falsely prepared a note stating that the items in the bag were only food. Alshemeili had revealed to the Customs, in the presence of witnesses, that the illegal materials inside the bag did not belong to him.
Swapna and the other accused persons had smuggled in altogether 200kg of gold worth Rs 100 crore around 20 times between November 2019 and January 2020. This aspect calls for intensive investigation and adds to the prima facie findings that the gold smuggled could have also been used for anti-national activities.
“The initial money required for obtaining gold was mobilised by various persons with dubious history and that the money was sent abroad through hawala channels. Further, the source of gold smuggled from the UAE is also under investigation,” it said.
The agency fielded Assistant Solicitor-General of India P Vijaya Kumar, two Central government standing counsel, Suvin R Menon and Jaisankar V Nair, and NIA senior public prosecutor Arjun Ambalapatta to oppose the bail plea.
‘Larger criminal conspiracy’
According to the NIA, the gold was smuggled as part of a larger criminal conspiracy hatched by the accused and a few others with the knowledge that the smuggling of such a huge quantity will threaten the security, including the economic stability, of India. Any act that would cause damage to the monetary stability of India is a terrorist act, since large-scale smuggling of gold would lead to a parallel economy. This can pose a threat to the monetary stability and economic security of India. The NIA added that while Swapna was the secretary to the UAE Consul-General and even after she was removed from the post in August 2019, she was involved in smuggling gold.