UAE Consulate officials are included in the gold smuggling case as Swapna Suresh told customs that the gold was smuggled in a diplomatic bag with the knowledge of Attache and that was paid $ 1,000 for smuggling a kilo of gold.
Earlier in the day, Swapna had filed a bail petition in the high court alleging that she had acted on Attache’s instructions to release the diplomatic bag. Defendants Sarith, Sandeep and Rameez have confessed to Customs that Attache was properly paid for the gold smuggling.
In an initial statement to Customs, Swapna said that he had only a friendly relationship with former IT secretary M Shivashankar. At the same time, Swapna Suresh has not given a clear answer to the question of whether Shivashankar was involved in gold smuggling.
The NIA team is questioning Shivshankar again on Monday in connection with the case. The NIA investigation is also in progress to check the CCTV footage of the Secretariat and gather more evidence on Swapna’s connection with Shivshankar.
