Only one of seized cars is mine: Actor Amit Chakkalackal responds to customs raid

Actor Amit Chakkalackal, whose residence was raided by the customs department a day ago in connection with the alleged smuggling of high-end luxury vehicles, on Wednesday said that only one of his cars was seized and the rest being attributed to him belonged to others.

The actor told reporters here that his over 20-year-old second-hand Land Cruiser, which he had been using for the last five years, was the only vehicle that belonged to him.

"The rest of the high-end cars seized from my residence and my workshop belonged to others who had brought them to me for renovation or repairs. So, of the total seven vehicles seized from my premises, only one was mine," he clarified.

He also said that the customs department in November last year had issued summons to him in respect of these vehicles and he had provided all the related documents back then and thereafter, no other steps were taken by the agency.

"Then, yesterday they came for the search and I again provided them with all the documents. Now, they have to verify the genuineness of the documents," he said.

Officials of the Customs Preventive department had on Tuesday carried out raids at multiple locations across Kerala to track down, identify and seize high-end luxury vehicles brought illegally to India from Bhutan with forged documents that have seals of the Army and the US Embassy.

Searches were carried out at around 30 locations, including at the residences of movie stars Prithviraj Sukumaran, Dulquer Salman and Chakkalackal, across the state and 36 high-end luxury cars were seized.

The raids were codenamed "Operation Numkhor" as 'Numkhor' in the Bhutanese language means 'vehicle'.

The department had said that many of the vehicles, brought illegally to India and sold in the country, were also used to smuggle gold and drugs and cases have been lodged in connection with that.

It also said that their initial probe revealed various other illegalities like income tax and GST evasion as well as money laundering in connection with the smuggled vehicles.

Besides that, it was also looking into whether the funds from such illegalities were used for terrorist activities, the department had said.