The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has asked Bineesh Kodiyeri to appear at its Kochi office on Wednesday for interrogation in connection with gold smuggling through a diplomatic baggage and the Bengaluru drug seizure cases. Bineesh Kodiyeri is the youngest son of CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.
Bineesh has reached the ED office in the morning.
The investigation officials want to find out whether the accused in the gold smuggling case received any assistance from Bineesh for their operations. The case surfaced after 30 kg of gold in a diplomatic bag from UAE was seized at the Thiruvananthapuram airport in July.
The ED will also look into allegations that he ran shell companies which were closed in just a year after they became operational.
Bineesh's name in the Bengaluru drugs seizure case surfaced last week when Anoop Mohammed, one of those arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau in the case, gave a statement that Bineesh had funded a hotel that he started a few years ago.
Anoop Mohammed had been arrested with more than 250 MDMA pills in his possession, investigation officials had said.
The NCB, while submitting the remand report for Anoop Mohammed, had attached a sheet of the questions they asked him and his answers. He told officials that he had leased a property in Kammanahalli in Bengaluru in 2015 and opened a restaurant with the name 'Hyaat' at Agnes Arcade with financial help from Bineesh Kodiyeri. Anoop also said that he sold Hyaat in 2018 due to financial difficulties.
In February 2020, he then started a home stay apartment called Royal Suits with another friend. It is from this establishment that he was caught by the NCB with a stash of ecstasy pills. Anoop had bought the MDMA pills from Anikha, who is believed to be the kingpin of the racket, officials said.
Meanwhile, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader Firoz alleged that Anoop and Bineesh were together at a party at a resort in Kumarakom during the time of the lockdown in June.
Bineesh had earlier responded to these allegations, admitting that he was friends with Anoop and he had loaned him money to start a business. Bineesh however said that Anoop's arrest came as a shock to him and he had no clue of the latter's drug business.
The pictures of the two of them together were taken a long time ago and he had not visited Kumarakom in a while, Bineesh claimed.