The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday filed a money laundering case in an alleged gold smuggling racket in which Kannada actor Ranya Rao has been arrested. The probe agency also conducted raids at eight locations across Karnataka as a part of the money laundering probe.
Simultaneously, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) also conducted raids at nine locations across Bengaluru, targeting the flats and properties of Ranya Rao’s husband, Jatin Vijaykumar Hukkeri.
Three agencies are probing the gold smuggling case: DRI, which is investing the Ranya Rao case, the CBI, which is probing the wider smuggling network and its operators, and the ED, which is probing the Hawala Channel.
Ranya Rao, the 33-year-old stepdaughter of a senior IPS officer, was caught smuggling gold at the Bengaluru Airport last week. She was carrying 14.2 kg of gold, some of which she was wearing, and the rest was concealed in her clothes. The officials tracking her movement grew suspicious since this was her fourth Dubai trip in 15 days and confronted her, leading to the seizure.
Subsequently, officials searched her home, where she lived with her husband, and found gold jewelry worth Rs. 2.06 crore and Indian currency amounting to Rs. 2.67 crore.
Ms Rao was reportedly a part of a smuggling network and took hefty commissions to smuggle goods from Dubai to Bengaluru – about Rs 4-5 lakh to smuggle a kilogram of gold.
During interrogation, Ms Rao said that she had received an internet call and was asked to collect the gold from Gate A of Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport, officials said. She then met a man in a white gown at the airport dining lounge and collected two packets of gold from him, which were wrapped in a “thick tarpaulin plastic type” material. Immediately, she went to a nearby washroom and concealed the gold on her body.
Ms Rao reached Bengaluru on an Emirates flight on March 3. According to the DRI, she got through the airport security with the help of a protocol officer who was involved in the racket. However, she was intercepted by the revenue officials near the exit gate. She was just a few feet away from the exit when the revenue officials caught her.
The actor was sent to the DRI custody till March 10, which was later extended till March 24.
