An accused of alleged smuggling of gold through diplomatic cargo to the UAE consulate in Kerala has alleged that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan carried a bundle of currency to the UAE during one of his visits to the emirate in 2017.
Customs claimed that the statement was made by PS Sarit, a former consulate employee, in a statement in October. It was while investigating a gold smuggling case that in August 2019, Customs detected an alleged illegal export of US$190,000 by Khalid Mohamed Al Shoukri, the former financial head of the consulate.
Customs has mentioned the claim against Vijayan in a show-cause notice issued on July 29 to six persons named in illegal export of dollars.
Six – Shoukari, including Sarit, Swapna Suresh (then executive secretary of the consulate), and Vijayan’s former principal secretary, P Sivashankar, have to file their replies within 30 days before the case can be decided based on the evidence on record. Swapna is also an accused in the gold smuggling case.
Earlier, the name of CPM leader and former Assembly Speaker P Sriramakrishnan had cropped up for alleged smuggling of foreign currency. On Wednesday, Sriramakrishnan said that Customs has not issued any showcase notice to him. “Customs is convinced of my statement and my innocence. Otherwise they would have given me a notice too.”
Separately, the Kerala High Court on Wednesday stayed an order by the Vijayan government, seeking a Commission of Inquiry (COI) by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to look into any “attempt” to implicate the Chief Minister in a gold smuggling case. ) was appointed, calling a parallel investigation. “will derail the investigation”. The Left government had appointed the CoI on 7 May. The stay was granted on the ED’s plea.
Reacting to reports of Sarith taking Vijayan’s name, the Chief Minister’s Office said, “No reaction is required on this issue. There was a lot of debate on this in the past as well. The matter is not going to affect us in any way. The alleged show cause notices were issued last month, but may have leaked today against the backdrop of the court’s decision (the High Court staying the state government’s CoI).
Customs says in its notice, “During the course of the investigation, evidence of illegal export of foreign currency was detected against Ali Shoukri, former Consul General Jamal Hussein Al Jaabi. However, he could not be confronted … as they were not available in the country … The investigation also revealed the involvement of persons holding constitutional positions … However, the prominent persons Al Jaabi and Ali Shouqi are yet to be investigated, appropriate action will be taken. has been initiated against the persons named herein or not on the basis of that.”
Customs says that in his statement under section 124 of the Customs Act, Sarit said that in early 2017, he received a call from the General Administration Department (of the state government) that the CM had planned to travel to the United Arab Emirates. has created. The delegation’s travel arrangements were coordinated by the consulate, with Swapna and the then Consul General Jamal Al Zaabi handling the travel plans.
According to Sarit, Swapna sought the contact number of Vijayan’s aide Shivshankar in this regard.
Sarit said that after Vijayan left for UAE, Swapna called him and said that the Consul General wanted him to collect a packet that the CM had forgotten to carry. Sarit said he picked up a packet from the Secretariat from an employee of the General Administration Department.
The show cause notice quoted Sarit as saying that he decided to put the packets through the X-ray machine in the consulate. “They found that the packet contained a bundle of currency and some other items. He told this secretly to Swapna. As per Swapna’s instructions, she handed over the packet to the Consulate General, Attache Ahmed Al Dukhi, who was traveling to the UAE, to hand over the packet to the Chief Minister on the instructions of the Consul General.
Swapna in her statement to Customs reportedly backed this up saying that Shivshankar had called her and told that there is an important packet which the CM was to be sent to UAE. He said that Al Dukhi took the packet.
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