'Consul eating mangoes’: Details of Kerala gold smuggling probe emerge

“The consul is eating mangoes.”

The chargesheet submitted by the Customs Department with the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Economic Offences Court in Ernakulam, reveals the active involvement of the Consulate General and the Admin Attache of the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram, in the alleged smuggling of gold and other material via diplomatic cargo using the protection of diplomatic immunity from scrutiny.

‘The consul is eating mangoes’ is the code used by the members of the smuggling racket to refer to the Consulate General’s smuggling activity, says the charge sheet. It is revealed that it is not the first time that Jamal Husein Alzaabi, the Consular General of the UAE, is involved in smuggling. He was charged with a similar offence when he was serving in Vietnam, and was subsequently posted in Thiruvananthapuram.

Probe by three agencies

The gold smuggling case that shook Kerala — in which 30 kg of the metal was seized from diplomatic cargo on June 30, 2020 — has been investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Customs. The NIA and the ED submitted their charge sheets earlier in the respective courts and the Customs submitted its on October 22, 2021.

Also read: Drugs will turn into sugar if SRK joins BJP, says Chhagan Bhujbal

The Customs found a huge racket around gold smuggling through the diplomatic route, in which many in India and UAE were allegedly involved. The purported partners in crime include officials of a couple of cargo companies, jewelleries, Etihad Airlines and the UAE Consulate, along with seasoned smugglers who have been engaged in the activity for years.

There are 29 accused in the Customs charge sheet, in which M Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary of the Chief Minister, is arraigned as the 29th one. According to the Customs, he ‘abetted the offence’. However, no one from the political front is named in the charge sheet.

The Opposition BJP and Congress had raised a ruckus, alleging that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his office were involved in smuggling, and this was used as a weapon in the 2020 Assembly election. However, this apparently did not yield too many votes for the BJP or the Congress.

What’s in the Customs charge sheet

Following are some of the key findings revealed in the investigation by the Customs:

1. Jamal Husein Alzaabi, Consul General of the UAE Consulate, and Khaled Mohamed Ali Shoukry, Finance Head of the Consulate, sought to make money through some illegal means and, during their tenure at the UAE Consulate in Vietnam, they were involved in the smuggling of cigarettes and other restricted items. On being caught they were transferred and posted at the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram. Rashid Khames, the Admin Attache, used to receive $1,500 for facilitating every transaction. It emerged that Alzaabi was involved in the smuggling of Oudh, prohibited medicines and cloth materials to the UAE in his official baggage for further sale. Further, investigation revealed that the Consul General was involved in several illegal deals, for which he had received huge amounts as kickbacks. It is apparent that the kickbacks so earned in Indian rupee were converted into foreign currency illegally and were smuggled out by him using his diplomatic immunity.
2. Gold was smuggled through the diplomatic channel 17 times, amounting to 135.8 kg, since November 2019. The 30 kg gold seized on June 30, 2020 was the last consignment of the smuggling syndicate, according to the Customs. None of those diplomatic consignments followed the rules, as any diplomatic cargo needs to have the authorisation of the UAE government.
3. Emirates SkyCargo, a cargo airline based in Dubai, Cappithan Agencies, a cargo company based in Kerala, and Etihad Airlines in Thiruvananthapuram also were actively involved in gold smuggling. Cappithan Agencies is designated by the UAE Consulate as the ‘customs broker’ (the company entrusted with customs clearance work). It was involved in illicit smuggling by filing wrong details in the Bill of Entry and also delivering the diplomatic cargo to an unauthorised person — PS Sarith, the first accused in the case, used to receive the cargo. Emirates SkyCargo actively abetted in the smuggling of 30.245 kg of gold by deliberate misdeclaration and repeated violation of its  own norms in respect of dispatch of diplomatic cargo and delivering the imported cargo without proper authorisation. Etihad Airways carried a consignment on March 4, 2020 addressed to the Consulate General. There was no authorisation from the UAE government, but the cargo was marked as ‘diplomatic cargo’ despite it being sent by an individual. The consignment contained 6.98 kg of gold.

The Customs charge sheet also turns a needle of suspicion towards the state government, but this is not supported by a piece of evidence. It is revealed from the statements of the accused that ‘some of the state ministers violated the protocol and kept active relationship with the UAE Consulate. They used to visit the Consulate, and the Consulate General and others used to visit the ministers, too. However, the charge sheet does not name any minister, and also does not provide any information regarding illegal gains made by them by ‘keeping close ties with the Consulate’.

Probe results: Where they differ

The gold smuggling case was investigated on a parallel track by the three Central agencies. Their findings were concurrent on several aspects but contradictory on some. For example, the Customs found Sandeep Nair, the third accused, to be one of the masterminds who engineered the smuggling racket. On the contrary, the NIA dropped him from the list and he turned approver. A few days ago, he got bail and, while being released from jail, his custody period under COFEPOSA got over.

On being released from jail he told the media that he was forced by the ED to name CM Vijayan, former minister KT Jaleel and former speaker Sreeramakrishnan in the case, which only strengthened the CPI(M)’s claim that the gold smuggling case was politically used by the BJP.

The NIA, which started the investigation by lodging an FIR for suspected ‘terror activity’ in the gold smuggling case, has not yet been able to bring in any evidence for the terror connection. A couple of times, the NIA court in Kochi sought explanation from the investigating agency on whether it had evidence to prove that gold was smuggled to finance terrorist activities, as claimed in the FIR.

When the bail applications of eight of the accused persons were brought before the court in October 2020, the court asked the Assistant Solicitor General whether they wanted to stick to the charges raised in the FIR or not. However, after a year, the NIA has not yet brought any new evidence to establish that the smuggling was done for aiding terrorism.

Though the ED and Customs arraigned Sivasankar as an accused, the NIA did not include him in the list of accused at any stage of the investigation.

Interestingly, the BJP appears to be silent on the findings of the Customs mentioned in the charge sheet. A statement by K Surendran, the Kerala chief of the party, said at the very beginning of the case that a phone call was made to the Customs from the CM’s office to save the accused. Though this statement triggered huge political controversy in the state, the Customs has never verified the claim and no evidence was found for such a call from the CM’s office.