M Sivasankar knowingly helped gold smuggling accused, says ED

KOCHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing the money laundering aspect of the Thiruvananthapuram gold smuggling case, on Thursday, filed a supplementary chargesheet against M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to the chief minister. The agency submitted in the report that Sivasankar had knowingly assisted Swapna Prabha Suresh, Sarith P S and Sandeep Nair in the gold smuggling activities.
The chargesheet also referred to Suresh’s statement recorded on December 14. “She, inter alia, stated that whenever cargo was held up at the airport Sivasankar used to call the customs officers to clear the consignment and when the customs caught the consignment on July 5, Sivasankar very well knew that the consignment had gold and he called the customs officials for release of the diplomatic consignment. She further stated that Sivasankar always helped in clearance of consignment and was completely aware that they were also exporting foreign currency abroad,” the chargesheet said.
The chargesheet said that he received illegal gratification in the Wadakkanchery Life Mission project and it was kept in the bank locker held jointly by Suresh and P Venugopal, Sivasankar’s chartered accountant. It stated that Sivasankar and others had committed an offence of money laundering under Section 3 of PMLA and rendered themselves liable for punishment under Section 4 of PMLA.
The report further stated that on being specifically asked about Sarith’s knowledge of financial transactions between Suresh and Sivasankar, Sarith stated that the cash seized by NIA officials from the locker jointly operated by Suresh and Venugopal belonged to Sivasankar and this cash was kickbacks in connection with the award of Life Mission project in Wadakkancherry.
He further told ED that Sivasankar had prior knowledge of gold smuggling through the diplomatic channel. The chargesheet stated that another statement of Suresh recorded on November 3, said that she might have called Sivasankar 2-3 times during her tenure as secretary in UAE consulate to intervene in clearing the diplomatic cargo.
“She stated that he was aware of the shady deals in awarding the UAE Red Crescent Life Mission project contract to Unitac Builders. She further stated that Sivasankar shared details of the rate quoted by Pennar Industries and Mitsumi and also messaged her details such as altogether 42 quotes for 10 locations, 12 firms participated, six quotes for Palakkad and Kasaragod and minimum three quotes for all locations,” the chargesheet said.
The report showed that Sivasankar, on being confronted with his WhatsApp messages dated December 2, 2019, to Suresh, which indicated that he had shared the quote details, he stated that the same was absolutely irrelevant to PMLA proceedings and that the details were in the public domain and were not ‘quote details’.
On another statement recorded on November 10, Suresh said that she was used by Sivasankar as a front for all the dealings involving UAE consulate.
The report showed that when Sivasankar was further confronted with Suresh’s statement wherein she stated that her WhatsApp conversation dated July 5, 2020, with Sivasankar was a pretentious chat purposefully done by them to make everyone believe that she was innocent and the media news of gold smuggling through diplomatic cargo came to them as a shock and they came to know about the news together around half an hour before this WhatsApp conversation happened, he stated that he did not know what she meant and denied everything.
On being confronted with his WhatsApp conversation with Suresh where she messaged him, “can I confess” for which he replied, “Not try. Do it” and then she messaged him “….A smuggler and a whatever ppl say I am” and specifically asked if he was aware of Suresh’s involvement in gold smuggling, he denied having any knowledge and awareness of it, the report said.