Swapna, Sandeep remanded in custody for 14 days

Our Correspondent

The two key accused in the gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair, were remanded in custody for 14 days by a National Investigation Agency (NIA) special court in Kochi on July 12.

The accused will be taken to the COVID care centre in and the authorities will wait for the COVID test results before beginning the questioning. They were taken to the Aluva hospital in Ernakulam for the mandatory COVID-19 test before being produced at the NIA Court.

The NIA team probing the Trivandrum Airport gold smuggling case brought Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair to the agency’s office in  Kochi by noon. Swapna and Sandeep were arrested around 7 pm from a service apartment in Koramangala in Bengaluru by the NIA team on July 11. Their passports and Rs 2 lakh were also seized from them.

Swapna went into hiding on July 5 after Customs officials at the Trivandrum International Airport seized 30 kg of gold worth.

The NIA had taken up the case on July 10 and filed first information reports against four persons in the case. In the FIRs, Sarith Kumar, who is now in the custody of the customs, is named first accused; Swapna Suresh is the second; elusive smuggling-kingpin Fazil Pareed is the third; and Suresh’s friend Sandeep Nair is the fourth accused. The FIRs were filed under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

It is for the first time that the premier agency, which handles cases related to national security and terror, is investigating a gold smuggling case. In the FIRs, NIA said the accused were part of a well-entrenched smuggling racket.

The Kerala Police had set up a special group to arrest Swapna Suresh and Sandeep on July 11. The DGP had entrusted a special investigation team under the leadership of Kochi City Deputy Police Commissioner G. Poonkuzhali with the task of apprehending the accused.