The Kochi unit of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday submitted the first part of the charge sheet in the gold smuggling scam that rocked the Kerala Government.
The chargesheet which runs into hundreds of pages lists 30 persons including Swapna Suresh, Sarith as accused. Sandeep Nair, who was arrested along woth Swapna and Sarith has turned approver in the sensational case.
The NIA was expected to file the chargesheet with the special court hearing the case within 180 days of the first arrest. Radhakrishna Pillai, the investigation officer, handed over the first part of the chargesheet before the deadline. Though the contents in the chargesheet are yet to be released, sources in the NIA said that the accused had been slapped with section 16, 17 and 18 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act which would make it difficult for the accused to come put on bail in the near future.
Though there are 30 persons listed as accused in the gold smuggling scam, the NIA could arrest only 21 persons till now. Out of this, seven persons are in judicial custody while 12 managed to get bail. Some of the persons who have been identified as accused by the NIA are absconding. Though Fazal Fareed, a Dubai based smuggler who is the master brain behind the entire scam have been caught by the UAE Police, Indian law enforcing agencies are yet to get him extradited to India.
The NIA officials remained tight-lipped when asked whether M Sivsankar, the former principal secretary of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has been included as an accused in the case.
The gold smuggling scam burst out when a diplomatic consignment meant to the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram evoked suspicion in the minds of the custom officials who held back the baggage for further inspection in the last week of June 2020. This resulted in a plethora of telephone calls from the Chief Minister’s Office to the Customs Department at Thiruvananthapuram airport arousing suspicion about the involvement of persons in higher places in the case.
Following the cracking of the gold smuggling scam, names of the Speaker of Kerala Legislative Assembly P Sreeramakrishnan, Kerala’s Minister for Higher Education KT Jaleel, Tourism Minister Kadakampalli Surendran and C M Raveendran, additional private secretary to the Chief Minister too started figuring in the scam.
The NIA which took up the case in July 2020 following the demand made by Pinarayi Vijayan to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for investigation by a central agency, was joined by Enforcement Directorate and CBI.