Ahead of grilling Jaleel, sleuths weigh currency in cartons used to bring UAE religious texts

Kochi: The sleuths probing Thiruvananthapuram international airport gold smuggling case did an unusual thing before questioning Kerala's Higher Education Minister K T Jaleel for violation of protocol while receiving diplomatic parcels of religious texts that landed in the name of the UAE Consulate.

They took one of the cartons in which the religious texts were allegedly sent from the UAE, filled it with currency notes and weighed it.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) are probing various possibilities of how gold could have been smuggled into Kerala in diplomatic cartons. Over 30 kg of gold was seized by the customs department at the cargo complex of the Thiruvananthapuram airport on July 5.

They are conducting their investigation with the help of the Customs department, which was the first agency to check the cartons.

It has been confirmed that the parcels the Customs department inspected had religious texts. But the agencies are investigating if anything else was brought into the state under the cover of religious texts.

The investigation teams’ moves are based on Jaleel’s statement that as per his knowledge the cartons contained only religious texts. They are trying to find and inspect 218 cartons, excluding those distributed by Minister Jaleel, that had come to the UAE Consulate through the diplomatic channels.

It was gold smuggling case main accused Swapna Suresh who took the initiative to hand over to the government the diplomatic parcels with religious texts that arrived at the UAE consulate. When she later got arrested in the gold smuggling case, the agencies decided to look into all her moves before the arrest.

It is the tactics used by Swapna and her gang in carrying out the smuggling operations under the cover of the close relations they had established with authorities at power centres that have prompted the investigators to look at all possible ways in which the gang would have functioned.

Customs commissioner, ED director hold discussions

Enforcement Directorate special director Sushil Kumar visited Customs (Preventive) Commissioner Sumit Kumar amid the raging controversies that have emerged following the seizure of 30 kg of gold at the airport.

The two are said to have discussed details of the gold smuggling case.

It is learnt that Sushil Kumar, who is in charge of the Enforcement Directorate’s operations in South India, explained to the Customs Commissioner about the statements the ED has recorded from various accused in the case.