Three days after she walked out of jail on bail, Swapna Suresh, the prime accused in Kerala's infamous gold smuggling case on Tuesday, November 9, said she will appear before the media shortly. Followed by the media when she came to Kochi to meet her counsel, she said, "At the moment, my priority is to deal with the cases that I am entangled in. I promise you I will appear before the media along with my mummy in Thiruvananthapuram. I will not run away from the media and I will speak out."
It was on Saturday that she walked out on bail from a jail in the state capital and then when the media posed questions to her, she had said she will speak later. The arrest of Swapna and her accomplices including PS Sarith and Sandeep Nair, who were alleged to be involved in gold smuggling through diplomatic channels using the UAE consulate at Thiruvananthapuram as a cover, rocked Kerala politics.
Several agencies had probed the case involving the smuggling of 30kg of gold worth Rs 14.82 crore from diplomatic baggage at the air cargo centre of Thiruvananthapuram International Airport in June 2020. The key accused were Swapna, PS Sarith, and Sandeep Nair. Swapna and Sarith were former employees of the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram while Sandeep Nair was a businessman doing some contract work for the consulate.
Swapna and Sandeep were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in July last year from Bengaluru while Sarith was arrested by the Customs in the state capital. The case had taken turns and became sensational after there were reports of involvement of the Kerala Chief Minister's office and subsequent arrest of the Chief Minister's powerful Principal Secretary, M Sivasankar.