Gold smuggling case: Customs moves NIA court seeking digital evidence

KOCHI: Commissionerate of Customs Preventive (CCP) – probing the gold smuggling case on Friday–moved the special court for NIA cases seeking digital evidence collected by the agency which is conducting a simultaneous probe related to the smuggling incident. Sources said customs filed the petition before NIA court stating that some of the digital evidence collected by NIA from Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair– including data from mobile phones and laptops recovered from them– were crucial to their probe.Customs would seek a copy of this digital evidence which was retrieved by C-DAC in Thiruvananthapuram. NIA will soon file a report on the request by CCP in court.
On Thursday, Customs had also approached the additional chief judicial magistrate (economic offence) court seeking permission to interrogate KT Ramees, Mohammad Shafi, Hamjad Ali, Said Alavi, Abdu PT and Hamzath Abdusalaam, who are in judicial custody. Meanwhile, sources said that Customs would move the court again to seek further permission to interrogate KT Ramees about his links with a person arrested by the narcotics control bureau (NCB) in Bengaluru. Sources said that the interrogation permission, which was sought on Tuesday, was related to the gold smuggling case and it is likely that permission would be sought again to question him again to get clarity on his alleged connections with the drug racket.
Anoop Mohammad, a Kochi native, was arrested by NCB with drugs at Bengaluru. Customs said that the said interrogation would be held only to cross-check reports available on open sources. Sources said that though they have no concrete information on connections of Ramees with the Bengaluru incident, Ramees used to frequent Bengaluru and had many friends there. Officials added that interrogating him on this new information would only shed more light on the issue.