Harshavardhini Ranya Rao (33), a Kannada actress and step-daughter of an IPS officer, who was caught redhanded smuggling 17 bars of gold weighing 14.2 kilos worth Rs 12.56 Cr at the Bengaluru International Airport, is in judicial custody – lodged at the Parappana Agrahara Central Prisons since March 3rd. Ranya’s two bail petitions were rejected – initially by the Special Court of Economic Offenses and later by a Sessions Court in Bengaluru recently, with the DRI officials objecting to her bail, stating it was a case compromising national security.
According to sources from prison, Ranya is hardly staying at the barracks meant for women undertrials and convicts. She has been a frequent visitor to the jail hospital after she refused to eat jail food multiple times. According to jail sources, she has spent most of her time at the jail hospital complaining of depression since her arrest in the gold smuggling case. However, sources also quipped that Ranya was unable to bear the heat of the summer at the women’s barracks, and she, along with a few high-profile undertrials, has complained of health issues and is cooling her heels at the jail hospital.
Gold Smuggling Case Probe So far
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials, at present, are interrogating the third arrested accused, Sahil Sakariya Jain, a gold jeweller based in Ballari for his alleged involvement in disposing of the gold bars that Ranya Rao had smuggled from Dubai to Bengaluru. The DRI officials have evidence at hand – by way of transactional statements and WhatsApp communications between Ranya Rao and Sahil Jain—for an alleged gold smuggling bid that was carried out on January 11th this year. According to sources, Ranya had smuggled 14.5 kilograms of gold that time and had handed over the gold bars to Sahil for disposal. DRI sources said that this was a different case altogether and not to be confused with the gold smuggling bid on March 3rd that was thwarted by DRI. DRI sources also state that they have evidence with them in connection with two more instances of gold smuggling involving Ranya Rao and Sahil on earlier occasions.
The second arrested accused, Tarun Raju Kondaru, has also been questioned by the DRI officials who had taken him to custody for five days and at present he has been remanded to judicial custody. Tarun also had moved his bail petition with the Special Court of Economic Offenses, which was dismissed and later his advocates moved his bail petition with the Sessions Court in Bengaluru. DRI sources confirmed that Tarun Raju has been in constant touch with Ranya Rao and had even travelled with her to Dubai and back on several occasions. Tarun Raju has US citizenship and is also holding a passport of the United States. DRI officials are also probing his involvement in the gold smuggling racket, where he is said to have procured the gold bars and declared the gold bars to be taken to Geneva from Dubai to the Dubai Airport authorities, and he had also purchased air tickets to travel to Geneva but instead travelled to Hyderabad from Dubai, while Ranya, who had concealed the gold on her body parts, flew down to Bengaluru, where she was nabbed red-handed on March 3rd.
Tarun Raju Kondaru and Ranya were business partners earlier who jointly started the Vira Gold & Diamonds outlet in Bengaluru. Tarun Raju, grandson of a business tycoon from Andhra Pradesh, had a short stint in movie acting as well, where he played a lead role in one of the Telugu movies in 2018. It was at that time that the two actors came into contact with each other, as Ranya Rao too had acted with a few big-ticket artistes from the Kannada and Tamil film industry.
Ranya Rao, the prime accused in the gold smuggling case, was arrested and interrogated by the DRI initially once after she was nabbed redhanded with gold bars in her possession at the Bengaluru International Airport on March 3rd. During that time, Ranya was accompanied by protocol officers while she disembarked the Emirates flight that had landed in Bengaluru airport. DRI officials have told the court that Ranya was not physically frisked and that she did not go through the Door Frame Metal Detector (DFMD) at the Airport Customs, boasting that she had protocol and that she was a daughter of an IPS officer in Karnataka. DRI also apprised the court that with this modus operandi, the agency suspects that Ranya would have hoodwinked the airport authorities, including Customs and could have smuggled large amounts of gold during previous occasions. According to the DRI officials, Ranya had travelled around 27 times to Dubai and back in less than a year and she always had protocol officers accompanying her and she would also use government (police) vehicles that would be waiting for her at the airport to pick her up and drop her off.
Soon after her arrest on March 3rd, DRI officials recorded her three statements, after which she was once again taken into custody and her further statements recorded after the DRI officials learned about her links with both the co-accused Tarun Raju and Sahil Jain.
Ranya Rao’s IPS Step-Father Questioned
An IPS officer holding a DGP rank in the Karnataka State Police, Ramachandra Rao is the stepfather of Ranya Rao, who has been allegedly behind extending protocol services to her stepdaughter at the Bengaluru airport whenever she travelled abroad and back. Ramachandra Rao was heading the Police Housing Corporation in the police department and soon after it was obvious it was at the behest of the IPS officer’s instructions that his stepdaughter availed protocol services at the airport and smuggled gold. Ramachandra Rao was sent on compulsory leave.
The Government of Karnataka had ordered an independent probe – headed by an additional chief secretary, Gaurav Gupta—into the allegations of the DGP-ranked officer Ramachandra Rao’s alleged involvement in extending protocol services to Ranya for smuggling foreign gold. Gupta conducted the probe and after questioning DGP Ramachandra Rao, he submitted a 230-page report to the Chief Secretary, Shalini Rajaneesh. Chief minister of Karnataka Siddaramaiah will look into the report and discuss it further with the state home minister, G. Parameshwara, after which the home department will take a call on initiating action against the DGP if found errant.
However, sources privy to the development said that DGP Ramachandra Rao, although admitting in the report that he was aware of the protocol services availed by his stepdaughter Ranya at the airport, there was no evidence against him as to whether he had instructed anyone at the Bengaluru International Airport to provide protocol for Ranya Rao.
Other Central Agencies Probing the Gold Smuggling Racket
Soon after the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials took up a case under sections of the Indian Customs Act and started their investigations, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials also took up a suo-motu case based on two incidents of gold smuggling – one at the Mumbai International Airport and the other – Ranya Rao’s Bengaluru gold smuggling case. Recently at the Mumbai airport, two foreigners were apprehended – one an Omani national and the other a UAE citizen. Both of them were arrested while they were allegedly attempting to smuggle gold weighing 21.28 kilograms worth Rs 18.92 Cr on March 6th. The CBI officials also suspect that there was involvement of officials from the central agencies, such as the Customs Department at the airport, under whose nose these gold smuggling bids are carried out. The CBI officials had registered an FIR in which they had mentioned the accused names as ‘unnamed’ officials.
It was then the turn of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), who took up a case and are investigating from their end. The ED officials suspect there was large-scale money laundering involved in these gold smuggling bids and they suspect the transactions would have been through cash, Hawala transactions and also using cryptocurrency/bitcoins. Investigating agencies are also exploring a link where children of politicians, businessmen and government officials are in contact with a notorious international hacker identified as Srikrishna, who is an accused in the Bitcoin scandal.
Both the CBI and ED officials conducted raids at the houses and office spaces of Ranya Rao, Tarun Raju and also Sahil Jain and have seized stashes of documents with which they are piecing the case altogether.
All three investigating agencies suspect a larger, organized syndicate at work behind these gold smuggling incidents.