KOCHI: The Enforcement Directorate's finding that former principal secretary M Sivasankar had contacted a customs officer to clear the diplomatic baggage has turned out to be a key piece of evidence which both the customs and NIA could not dig up.
The ED traced the details from the WhatsApp chats between Swapna Suresh and Sivasankar which were also accessed by the other two agencies.
According to customs sources, the three national agencies were sharing information about the case on a daily basis. But the ED did not pass on Sivasankar's chat messages which revealed that he had contacted a customs officer in April 2019.
"We came to know about it only after the ED served the arrest memo to Sivasankar, which was later substantiated in the affidavit filed before the Special Court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases. If they have information that the customs officer was contacted, then they should interrogate the officer as well. They have not given the name of the officer, nor the details about the consignment and the date when it arrived. Our team communicated with ED on the day Sivasankar was arrested, but no such information was passed on to us," a customs department source said.
The customs department claimed that cargo clearance in Thiruvananthapuram is automated and directly monitored by the its unit in Mumbai and no cargo can be cleared even by an assistant commissioner in Thiruvananthapuram.
"We expect them to pass on the information in this regard after interrogating Sivasankar. Hopefully, they will substantiate it in the report to be filed at the court on the expiry of Sivasankar's custody," the source said.
The NIA sources said they are analysing Swapna's WhatsApp chats. While the NIA is focusing on terrorism and activities that threaten the economic stability of the nation, the ED is looking into the money laundering side of gold smuggling. It was the NIA which seized the iPhone from Swapna in Bengaluru from which the chat details were traced by the ED.
However, the ED believes that the other two agencies might have missed the details. "The data retrieved was so huge that analysing every single chat is not possible. The ED's probe team could dig up the chat and Sivasankar was confronted with it on October 15 and he accepted the finding. He denied it later.
Sivasankar is being questioned in custody and all evidence will be collected," a top official in the ED headquarters said.
As per the report filed at the court, the ED is in possession of WhatsApp messages between Sivasankar and Swapna which indicate that he had intervened for the clearance of diplomatic baggage as late as April 2019. "It is revealed that other accused persons had conspired to send two pieces of dummy diplomatic baggage in July 2019 which was just two months after the intervention by Sivasankar for clearance of a diplomatic baggage which could also be a dummy baggage or contained gold that got cleared unexamined," the remand report stated.
The ED has also submitted the details of the WhatsApp chats between Swapna and Sivasankar at the Kerala High Court when the anticipatory bail plea was considered. One of the main grounds for dismissing the anticipatory bail was the same chat messages.