Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The long arm of the law finally caught up with Indian-born fugitive jeweler Mehul Choksi, alleged mastermind of the Rs.13,500 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam in 2018, and he will soon be repatriated to India to face justice.
Choksi, 62, was captured on a beach in Dominica and will be repatriated to India, Gaston Brown, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said days after he went missing from the tiny Caribbean nation where he had acquired citizenship in 2017, a few months before the scam surfaced. He was living there since 2018.
After his staff found his abandoned car on Sunday and reported he was missing, the Opposition raised the issue. On Tuesday, Browne had told Antigua’s Parliament that Choksi was fighting two cases in the country relating to his citizenship and extradition to India. He went missing on Sunday after he was seen going to dinner in his car.
The media reported that he could be brought back to India in the next few days. India has activated diplomatic channels to get his custody directly from Dominica where he had entered illegally from Antigua by boat while trying to escape to Cuba.
New Delhi enjoys good relations with Dominica where it had recently sent 100,000 Covid-19 vaccines free of cost as part of its “Vaccine Maitri” initiative.
Police in Antigua and Barbuda had been questioning Choksi’s relatives and had requested Interpol (International Police Coordination Agency) to issue a global alert after he went missing. Interpol had issued a Yellow Notice against him and launched a manhunt.
“We will not accept him back in Antigua,” Browne said, adding, “he made a monumental error by skipping the island.”
Choksi will not have the same legal rights in Dominica as he had in Antigua and Barbuda. He took Antigua and Barbuda’s citizenship in 2017 under the Citizenship by Investment program which provides the investor legal rights in the island country.
The Dominican government was cooperating with Antigua and discussing modalities with the Indian government for his repatriation.
India had filed fraud charges against Choksi, his nephew, Nirav Modi, and others in connection with their alleged involvement in fraudulent transactions using bogus documents that led to losses of about USD2 billion for PNB.
In 2018, PNB had said that some rogue employees had issued fake bank guarantees over several years to help jewelry groups, promoted by Choksi and Modi, raise funds in foreign credit.
However, before the fraud came to light, the uncle-nephew duo fled India and claimed no wrongdoing. Modi was arrested in London in 2019 and is fighting extradition to India.