This is a developing event, so things may rapidly change. Well, the matter is high serious topic and indeed shall affect India-UAE &relationship too. The incident was all about discovery of smuggled gold in &allegedly diplomatic baggage meant for UAE Consulate in Trivandrum which Trivandrum Air Customs exposed yesterday. As per current information, a diplomatic baggage came as unaccompanied air parcel cargo to Trivandrum via one of the chartered flights from Dubai and Trivandrum Customs had serious doubts about its contents. It was addressed to an Emirati Consul officer of the consulate and the contents was declared as locks and other metal hardware, but Customs had serious doubts. As per Vienna conventions, diplomatic baggage are never inspected or opened as they have immunity. But due to the this serious doubt, Customs held the baggage and informed Ministry of Foreign Affairs New Delhi for permission. They got permission from UAE Embassy in Delhi to inspect the baggage and when inspected, Gold was found inside the metal pieces. Unaware of these process, a man called Sarith Nair came to claim the cargo in his capacity as PRO of UAE Consulate-Trivandrum. He was detained by customs and later discovered that he was using a forged ID Card of the consulate as he was no longer working with Consulate. He also mentioned he was working on behalf of a lady - Swapna Suresh. Now Swapna Suresh was the Executive Secretary of Consul General of UAE to Kerala and she was one of the protocol officers in the consulate. However she left that job 6 months ago and joined as a contract employee in Kerala IT Department. She is working as Operations Manager of Space Park of Kerala IT Infrastructures Limited (contract job). The fact of this case as per current allegations is that, she got this job thro’ her personal influence with Kerala IT Secretary- Shivashankar IAS. Shivashankar IAS is also Chief Minister’s Office Principal secretary and IT Department is directly managed by CMO. So the out-of-the-way appointment of the accused Swapna Suresh (who has no IT background) in IT Department became the key issue. Swapna Suresh was terminated from IT Department yesterday night as she was absconding. Now the facts of the case. For a long time, Gold Smugglers use multiple ways to smuggle gold into Kerala. Kerala Police, Customs and DRI was investigating on a blackmail case associated with Actress Shamna Kasim for last few weeks. Popular Malayalam-Tamil actress Shamna Kasim is alleged to be blackmailed by a group of gangsters to become as a carrier for a gold smuggling racket. This racket was caught based on Shamna’s complaint and the gangsters were remanded. Its said, they made a crucial information that gold is being smuggled via Diplomatic channel too. Its based on this information, Customs wanted to check the diplomatic baggage and gold being discovered. Use of diplomatic channel for illegal smuggling is definitely a very serious issue and UAE Embassy and UAE Foreign Affairs Ministry will now have to investigate and explain this. As per Embassy, the consulate didn’t order any package, rather it came under forged address. However the parcel was booked as Diplomatic Package in Dubai and has UAE Seal on it. It was booked by a wife of an Emirati officer in Dubai addressed to her husband who is working in UAE consulate. So essentially the forgery is much bigger racket involving Emirati officials too and UAE customs/Federal or Dubai Police will require to investigate how the package came to Trivandrum via Diplomatic channel Trivandrum customs claims, this man- Sarith was clearing many packages of UAE Consulate since Jan 2020, which means this route could be used for last 6 months, which aggravates the whole context. So one part of the case rests with UAE Diplomats’ hand in smuggling. Now the other part As of now, Swapna is claimed to be kingpin of the case. She was working with UAE consultate and being a Protocol officer, she had extremely high connections with elite of Kerala’s political circles who regularly interact with UAE consul General and other Emirati officials in Trivandrum .....  Swapna's real name is MUMTAZ ISMAIL. Now the case is with NIA.