Speed up gold smuggling, housing scam cases: Court

The gold smuggling and Life Mission housing scam cases have entered a crucial phase with far-reaching implications for the key suspects, the state government as well as the investigating agencies.

The NIA Court has asked the investigators to urgently submit proof to substantiate the charges in their FIR against the gold smuggling suspects under UAPA, failing which it said the accused will have to be granted bail.

It asked NIA to submit the case diary in support of their claims the proceeds of the gold smuggling were being used to fund terrorism or anti-national activities. The investigations have somewhat got stuck as the NIA has not been able to access crucial evidence of the video clip of CCTV footage from the state secretariat and delay in analysing large amounts of digital data collected from the mobile phones and laptops of the key accused in the gold smuggling case, including Swapna Suresh.

The NIA court’s warning came even as Swapna Suresh was ganted bail by the economic offences court in the case registered by Customs for the alleged use of diplomatic channel for gold smuggling. But the bail will not help Swapna as she is held in the case filed by the NIA.

Meanwhile, the Kerala HC refused to stay CBI probe into the Life Mission scam, in which the agency has filed a case under the foreign contributions law for accepting foreign funds without authorisation. The probes have progressed to the next stage as CBI sleuths on Monday questioned Life Mission CEO UV Jose and officials.

Further, Bineesh Kodiyeri, the son of CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakarishnan on Monday flew to Bengaluru, where he is expected to present himself before ED in the drugs peddling case.