Crowd funding, source of fund in Kerala gold smuggling case

Thiruvananthapuram: The ongoing probe by Customs and the NIA in the now controversial gold smuggling case, in which even the office of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is allegedly involved, has revealed it was crowd funding -- the main source of funds in gold smuggling.

The Customs on Thursday arrested two more people who have been identified as those behind financing the buying of gold.

The entire money required to buy gold is transferred through hawala to the UAE.

The case which has large scale ramifications across sectors first surfaced when P.S. Sarith, a former employee of the UAE Consulate, here was arrested by the Customs on July 5 when he was facilitating smuggling of 30 kg gold in diplomatic baggage to Thiruvananthapuram from Dubai.

It turned murkier when the name of Swapna Suresh, a former employee of the UAE Consulate, here and employed with the IT Department, surfaced and it turned the full circle when her links with the principal secretary of Vijayan - M. Sivasankar, who is also the State IT secretary, were revealed.

First Swapna was booted out and then Vijayan quickly removed Sivasankar from both the posts, but it was not enough as the Congress and the BJP went full throttle demanding the suspension of Sivasankar and the resignation of Vijayan.

The Centre also stepped in and the NIA was asked to probe the case, even as the Customs is already on it.

A day after NIA was put into service, Swapna and her friend Sandeep were taken into custody from Bengaluru and are presently under judicial custody.

It was after that the probe went into high gear and the Customs have by now completed a nine hour grilling of Sivasankar, while the NIA have got vital leads after questioning Swapna, Sandeep, Sarith and Rameez, all were arrested.

It was the leads, which led to the modus operandi of the operations and according to the Customs, the gold smuggling gangs consist of several layers and include financiers, here - who raise the money to buy gold from the Middle East. Then there is another section who transports it to the various end users - which are the jewellers in the state and the vital clogs are those who coordinate the entire operations with precision.

At the end of the successful operation, everyone involved gets their due share and Customs have now found out this particular gang in the month of June alone has smuggled 70 kg of gold on three different occasions.