Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: July 22 2022 at 17:02 IST
In their argument, the ED alleged that there is a close connection between the accused and important members of the Kerala administration.
In light of her recent statement before a magistrate court here under Section 164 of the CrPC, the case’s key accused, Swapna Suresh, recently showed up before the Enforcement Directorate’s Kochi unit.
On July 11, 2020, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took into custody Suresh, a former employee of the UAE Consulate in this city, along with another accused, Sandeep Nair, who was arrested in Bengaluru.
The racket that was busted with the seizure of gold valued at Rs 15 crore from the diplomatic baggage of the UAE Consulate at Thiruvananthapuram airport on July 5, 2020, was the subject of separate investigations by the NIA, Enforcement Directorate (ED), and Customs. A number of people were arrested in connection with the case, including M Sivasankar, the former principal secretary to the Chief Minister of Kerala, and Sarith P S, another former employee of the UAE Consulate in this city.
Earlier, in the State Assembly, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan rejected the opposition’s demand for a CBI probe into the gold smuggling case involving the UAE embassy to be overseen by the High Court.