KOCHI: The Customs Commissionarate (Preventive) Kochi probing the Kerala gold smuggling case involving diplomatic channel on Thursday took into custody Karat Faisal, an LDF councillor of Kaduvally municipality in Kerala's Kozhikode district.
The Customs team from Kochi raided Faisal's house early morning and took him into custody.
Faisal is being brought to the Customs Kochi office from Kozhikode, officials said, adding that he is likely to be arrested after interrogation.
According to Customs officials, Faisal is suspected to have played an active role in investing and selling the smuggled gold.
"We had interrogated some of the arrested persons in the case at jail recently. Based on the information and the probe, it is revealed that Faisal is one of the key links in the smuggling chain. He is a highly influential person with connections in political and business circles. He was involved in multiple gold smuggling cases before," a Customs official said.
The name of Faisal came to limelight after he was arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in a gold smuggling incident at Karipur airport in 2013.
He was the seventh accused in the case. After the adjudication procedure, a penalty of Rs 38 lakhs was imposed on him.
"His name surfaced in another gold smuggling case at Thiruvananthapuram last year. However, he was not booked due to a lack of clear-cut evidence against him. He became a councillor after contesting as an independent candidate backed by LDF in 2016," an official said.
CPM State Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan landed in controversy when he used Faisal's luxury open roof car as part of the Communist party's election campaign rally at Kozhikode in 2017.