Ernakulam: The Customs investigation team has charged Sarith and Swapna Suresh, the key accused persons in the case of gold smuggling through diplomatic baggage channel at Thiruvananthapuram Airport, for allegedly smuggling foreign currency from Kerala to UAE, here on Monday.
In a fresh case charged by the Customs, the agency has booked Sarith and Swapna Suresh for smuggling US dollars to foreign countries violating the FEMA act. The Customs has submitted a report with the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court (ACJM) Court for Economic offences here on Monday and has sought permission to arrest them both.
The previous charges the duo have been booked for are still being probed by the central agencies - National Investigation Agency, the Customs and the Enforcement Directorate. Both the accused are currently under judicial custody.
In her statement, earlier, Swapna had revealed that she had smuggled US dollars associating with the United Arab Emirates Consul General Attache.
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Now, the Customs has found that Sarith and Swapna have smuggled 190000 US dollars to Oman in the same manner. The smuggling was carried out after doing a dummy examination on the X-Ray machine at the UAE consulate. As per Swapna’s statement, the dollars were smuggled associating with another staff with the UAE consulate, named Khalid, who is a native of Egypt.
Sarith, Khalid and Swapna smuggled the dollars initially to Dubai and then from Dubai to Oman, according to the Customs.
The Customs have sought the Court to grant permission to arrest the accused and remand them to judicial custody under the charges of violation of Foreign Exchange Management (FEMA) Act. The agency also suspects the involvement of M Shivasankar, former principal secretary in this case.
Shivasankar, who was served a notice to depose before the investigation team late last week, had developed physical uneasiness and was admitted to a private hospital. Later, he was shifted to the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College.
Meanwhile, the ACJM Court expressed dissent in the incident of leaking the statement that Swapna had given the Customs and was submitted in the Court. As Swapna’s lawyer called the Court’s attention towards the matter of Swapna’s statement to the Customs being leaked out, the Court said the matter would be taken seriously.
Sarith’s statement to the Customs has also been out. Sarith had said, in his statement to the Enforcement Directorate, that a group titled ‘C.P.M. Committee’ was formed on the Telegram application. Sandeep Nair, another key accused in the case, had started the group.
It was later that Sarith, K.T. Ramiz, Swapna and others were added to the group, as revealed by Sarith in his statement to the ED. Sarith has also claimed, in his statement, that he does not directly know Faisal Fareed, the main accused in the gold smuggling case, and that it was Ramiz who had direct links with Faisal.
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