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Move created another obstacle to India’s efforts to bring Mehul Choksi home and stand trial in its largest bank fraud case.
The Dominican court prohibited local authorities from deporting the fugitive jeweler Mehul Choksi, which created another obstacle for New Delhi to try to take him home and try India’s largest bank fraud case.
Choksi was born in India and was arrested in Dominica earlier this week after disappearing from the Caribbean country of Antigua on Sunday, triggering a global hunt.
After escaping from India before the fraud case was exposed, he has lived in Antigua and obtained a passport there. He is one of the main defendants in this case.
After Choksey was arrested, Antigua refused to take him back.
Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Brown told Reuters’ Indian partner ANI that the country is negotiating with the Dominican and Indian governments on his repatriation to India.
His lawyer in India, Vijay Aggarwal, told Reuters that after Choksi submitted a habeas corpus request to the Dominican authorities, the court ordered him to be prevented from deportation, which determined whether the detention was legal.
Agarwal said the court has allowed Choksi to obtain legal aid, adding that the case will be heard on Friday.
The Indian Federal Police have filed fraud charges against Choksi, his nephew Nirav Modi and others for their involvement in fraudulent transactions, causing the Punjab National Bank of India (PNB) to lose approximately US$2 billion.
PNB claimed in 2018 that some rogue employees had issued false bank guarantees within a few years to help the jewelry group controlled by Modi and Choksey raise foreign credit funds.
Modi and Choksey traveled abroad in January 2018 and have never returned since. Both denied any wrongdoing.
Modi was arrested in London in 2019 and is seeking to extradite him to India, while New Delhi has been pushing for the extradition of Choksey from Antigua and Barbuda.
Not long after Choksey left India in 2018, he appeared in Antigua and Barbuda and obtained citizenship there. He mysteriously disappeared on Sunday, after Antigua police asked Interpol to issue a global alert.
Choksi was subsequently arrested in neighboring Dominica.
“He was arrested by the police in the northern Dominica. Since there is no airport in the area, we believe that he used a boat to enter the Dominica illegally,” India News18 quoted a Dominican police spokesperson as saying.
According to News18, the police said that Choksi was found at Canefield Beach in Roseau, the capital of Dominica, and he was handling documents at sea.
The police on duty at the beach found his behavior suspicious. They interrogated first and then arrested him.
“We have asked the Dominican government to detain him for illegal entry into their country… and deport him directly to India,” News18 quoted Brown as saying.
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