The infamous Gold smuggling case is taking many twists and turns. On Friday, barred IAS officer M Sivasankar came before the Customs Department for the third time in regard to his probe into the controversial gold smuggling case in Kerala. The Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate had questioned Sivasankar twice earlier after his alleged links with Swapna Suresh, the key accused in the case, surfaced. Central agencies, including the National Investigation Agency, the Customs Department and the Enforcement Directorate, are conducting separate inquiries into the seizure of 30 kg of gold smuggled through diplomatic baggage at the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport on July 5.

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Several people, including Swapna Suresh and Sarith PS, two former employees of the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram, have been arrested by the central agencies in union with the case. This development comes a few days after the Enforcement Directorate, which is conducting a parallel investigation into the case, told the court that a thorough investigation should be conducted on Sivasankar. Professedly, he helped Swapna to open a bank locker where she is suspected to have kept the proceedings from the smuggled gold.

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Censured Swapna Suresh and a Thiruvananthapuram-based Chartered Accountant, who is named as a witness in the case, have given statements that Sivasankar helped opened the locker. It has also come out that Swapna’s appointment in Space Park, a project of the IT Department of the state, was allegedly facilitated by Sivasankar. The senior Kerala IAS officer was suspended from service in July, a month after the gold smuggling case surfaced. Prior to the suspension, Sivasankar was removed from the post of Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and from the post of Secretary of the state’s IT Department.

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