Mukunda S.
What is so serious about the Kerala gold smuggling case and the state government facing the all round political heat? We are narating the facts that have come to the light and as this is a developing event – undergoing NIA investigation – new facts may come to light in public domain and the quantum of their seriousness may rapidly change with the passage of time.
Well, even as of now the matter is quite serious. It impinges on the issue of national security and indeed it may adversely affect the India – UAE relationship too.
The incident – this case – is all about the discovery of smuggled gold in allegedly diplomatic baggage, which was ostensibly meant for UAE Consulate in Trivandrum. This wrong claim was exposed by the Trivandrum Air Customs yesterday. As per the current information available, a diplomatic baggage had come as an unaccompanied air parcel cargo to Trivandrum via one of the chartered flights from Dubai. The Trivandrum Customs had a serious doubts about its “declared” contents. It was addressed to an Emirati Consul officer of the consulate and the content was declared as “locks and other metal hardware”. Naturally, the declaration of this “strange” content evoked a serious doubt in the minds of the officers of the Customs about its truthfulness.
As per the Vienna conventions, diplomatic baggage are never to be inspected or opened as they enjoy an immunity in this respect. But due to the seriousness of the doubt and its implications for national security, the Customs officers held the baggage in their possession and informed the superior officers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, government of India, at New Delhi for their instructions about what was to be done in the matter. The superior officers at New Delhi approached the UAE Embassy, informed them about the claim and their doubt and got their permission to inspect that baggage. Surprisingly when the baggage was opened and inspected, a huge quantity of Gold was found inside the baggage as metal pieces.
Unaware of all these goings-on at the airport, a man called Sarith Nair came to claim the cargo in his capacity as PRO of UAE Consulate -Trivandrum. He was detained by the Customs authorities and later it was discovered that he was using a forged ID Card of the Consulate as he was no longer working with the Consulate. He also mentioned that he was working on behalf of a lady – Swapna Suresh.
Now who was this Swapna Suresh? It was found that she was the Executive Secretary of the Consul General of UAE to Kerala and she was one of the protocol officers in the Consulate. However – it was found – she had left that job 6 months ago and had joined as a contract employee in Kerala IT Department. She has been working as an Operations Manager of the Space Park of Kerala IT Infrastructures Limited on a contract basis.
As per the allegations in this case, she had got this job through her personal influence with Kerala IT Secretary – Shivashankar IAS. Shivashankar IAS is also Chief Minister’s Office Principal Secretary and the IT Department is directly managed by the Chief Minister Office.
Swapna Suresh had been appointed “out-of-the-way” in the IT Department and she had no IT background at all. In addition to the gold smuggling offence, her “out-of-the-way” appointment, its reason and the involved national security concerns have now also become the key issues to be looked into by the investigating agency (in this case, NIA).
Swapna Suresh has been terminated from IT Department yesterday night as she is absconding. Now, let us look at the background facts of this case.
For a long time, gold smugglers have been using multiple ways to smuggle gold into Kerala. Kerala Police, Customs authorities and DRI have been investigating for the last few weeks into a blackmail case involving Actress Shamna Kasim. Popular Malayalam -Tamil actress Shamna Kasim is alleged to have been blackmailed by a group of gangsters for pressurising her to become ready and willing to work as a carrier for a gold smuggling racket. This racket was caught by the authorities, of which investigation was started on the complaint of this Shamna and the gangsters were remanded to the police custody.
Its said that these gangsters divulged a crucial information that gold is being smuggled via Diplomatic channel too. It was in the light of this information that the Customs authorities wanted to check the contents of the diplomatic baggage and that the gold was discovered therein.
Use of diplomatic channel for illegal smuggling of gold is definitely a very serious threat to the national security and UAE Embassy and UAE Foreign Affairs Ministry also now will have to investigate into this crime and to explain about this.
As per the Embassy, the Consulate didn’t order any package, rather it came under a forged address. However the parcel was booked as Diplomatic Package in Dubai and has the UAE Seal on it. It was booked by a wife of an Emirati officer in Dubai addressed to her husband who is working in the UAE consulate.
So essentially the forgery now exposes a much bigger racket involving Emirati officials too and UAE customs/Federal or Dubai Police will be required to investigate how this package came to Trivandrum via Diplomatic channel
Trivandrum customs claims that this man – Sarith – was clearing many packages of UAE Consulate since Jan 2020, which means this route could be used for last 6 months, which multiplies the seriousness of the issue and aggravates the nature of the present event – catching the culprits red handef!
This is first part of this case, which blackens the UAE Diplomats’ hand in the gold smuggling into India.
Now the second part of this case:
As of now, Swapna is claimed to be the kingpin of this case. She was working with UAE consultate and being a Protocol officer, she had extremely high connections with elite in the Kerala’s political circles who regularly interact with UAE consul General and other Emirati officials in Trivandrum. Swapna’s real name is Mumtaz Ismail and now this case is with NIA for investigation.
Let us turn to the third part of this case as well. (By: Supria Pillai):
How did Mumtaz Ismail alias Swapna Suresh get into the office connecting the state IT dept to ISRO – the primier scientific research and development organization of India, directly connected to the national security? Who is that person in Kerala who had given the necessarily required security clearances for the appointment of Mumtaz Ismail in the IT Department of the State?
Are the allegations correct that she is in contract with the UAE, China and Pakistan and is giving out the secrets about our Space technological programs to these countries? She says that she loves UAE and is a citizen of that country. If that is true, how come she got the job in such high security offices of the Govt of Kerala? This means she is a spy!
Swapna Suresh married Ismail when she was 18. Before she married him, she got converted to Islam and now her current name is Mumtaz Ismail. Was it a case of love jihad?
Ismail – Mumtaz’s husband – was sent to prison on some fraud charges. He is still there in the jail. Mumtaz then came to India and worked at various places and then she was recommended for appointment as the Executive Secy to the UAE Counsel General. She did not even pass her 10th std.
Let us rewind into the past a bit.
Once Shampoo boy became MP of Trivandrum, he lobbied for a UAE Counsulate in Trivandrum and he got it! A certain Congress MP from Kerala – who was MP in Lok Sabha until the last elections and who sat next to this party’s boss in Lok Sabha – needed to send Rs. 88 crores into India from the UAE. He got it done all by using Mumtaz and her gang !!! This is just the tip of the iceberg ! Mumtaz knows too much.
This is how love jihad works. Hindu girls become a weapon to be used against Hindus and India. Probably you all know this. This is how a gold smuggling racket operates:
An unsuspecting wealthy individual in India or aborad is presented with an opportunity in investment, where such unsuspecting persons are asked to invest 35 Lakh rupees in a project; they are promised 10% risk free interest for the rest of their lives.
So far as the “investor” is concerned, he recoups his investment in the first 10 months and everything else is a bonus for him – and one would be stupid to not invest in such an opportunity.
With this investment, the protagonist buys 1 kg of gold in the UAE (which costs about 35 lakhs INR), and oxidises it (which then in a semi-solid state is easy to be hidden away and cannot be detected by metal detector.) The oxidised gold is then given to a carrier, who gets a commission of INR 50,000 and a free ticket.
Its economics is this: 1 KG gold costs approx 35 lakhs INR in UAE, and once smuggled to India fetches about 40 lakh INR.
As soon as the gold gets to India, 40 lakhs is transfered to the sender straight away through Hawala. Of the Rs. 5 lakh profit, Rs.1 lakh goes towards the flight ticket and for the carrier commission, and about Rs. 50k as bribe etc, and the protagonist ends up with a profit of about Rs. 3.5 lakhs in one consignment.
He then repeats this about 10 times a month and makes a total profit of about 35 lakh INR per month, of which he gives 3.5 lakhs to the “investor”.
There are hundreds of “investors” who have entrusted their money with these folks, and more than 500 kgs of gold gets smuggled every month into India.
Most jewelleries in Kerala source a good chunk of their gold in this way and it is not a big secret in their circles.
And UAE is just a transit point for the smuggled gold from Uganda and other West African countries. Here is an interesting study report by a Canadian agency – Published in Nov 2019 – Comprehensive with all the statistics and numbers on how crooked UAE is.
Don’t think it is 700 KG per month. It was 150 tons smuggled into India via UAE in 2013, of which only 2.34 tons was seized. i.e less than 2%.