An Egyptian national and former employee of the UAE consulate in Kerala is likely to be arraigned in a case related to smuggling of dollars, which came to light during the probe into the gold smuggling case
The customs on Tuesday filed an application at the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate court for economic offences in Kochi seeking a non-bailable warrant against Khaled Mohamed Ali Shoukry, who was a former finance wing head at the consulate, on charges of smuggling 1,90,000 dollars received as commission.
Shoukry allegedly smuggled the dollars to Egypt through Oman in August 2019.
Gold smuggling case accused and former executive secretary at the consulate Swapna Suresh had given statement in this regard to the customs earlier. She, as well as another accused Sarith P S, had also accompanied Shoukry up to Oman to ensure hassle-free smuggling.
Customs said in the report that a case has been already registered in connection with dollar smuggling and Shoukry may be made an accused in the case. The court will consider the application on Thursday
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's former secretary M Sivasankar, who was held by ED in connection with his nexus with gold smuggling accused, had allegedly pressurised a bank manager to give dollars to Swapna for cash.