Causing further damage to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's image, the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday stated before a special court in Kochi that apart from the Chief Minister's principal secretary M Sivasankar, some more officials in the CMO were aware of the gold smuggling through diplomatic baggage.
ED assistant director P Radhakrishnan also stated in an affidavit seeking an extension of Sivasankar's custody, that Sivasankar was involved in the gold smuggling activities and he intervened to get the diplomatic baggage tag for the luggages containing gold. Also, the Rs. One crore commission amount involved in a housing scheme sponsored by the UAE Red Crescent for the homeless in Kerala is suspected to have been meant for Sivasankar.
The fresh developments came close on the heels of ED summoning CM's additional private secretary C M Raveendran. But Raveendran has not appeared in front of ED yet, citing that he is infected with Covid-19.
According to the ED's statement before the special court for cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the key accused in the gold smuggling case Swapna Suresh, who was a former employee of the UAE consulate, revealed after further quizzing that Sivasankar and his team in the CMO were fully aware of the gold smuggling through the diplomatic channel.
She also said that Sivasankar was aware of the kickbacks given by Unitac Builders for facilitating the award of the contract from Red Crescent for the housing scheme and the Rs. One crore amount found in Swapna's bank locker was meant for Sivasankar. Swapna also stated that Sivasankar shared crucial information related to many government projects.
The court allowed Sivasankar's custody in the ED for one more day. His bail application would be considered by the court on Thursday. Sivasankar was arrested by ED on October 28 and arraigned as the fifth accused in the case registered by ED in the gold smuggling controversy.
Meanwhile, BJP state president K Surendran said that the Covid-19 infection of C M Raveendran, who has been close with Vijayan as well as the CPM for a long time, is quite suspicious. "Raveendran could be giving more information about the nexus of the CM's office with the gold smuggling accused and hence Raveendran's life could be even under threat," he said.