Brussels/New Delhi: Fugitive Indian diamantaire Mehul Choksi, 65, wanted in India for defrauding PNB Bank of billions, has been arrested in Belgium based on India’s extradition request.
The businessman was arrested by the police last Saturday near his apartment on the Antwerp Island.
Choksi, who previously headed the Gitanjali Group, a large jewellery company in Mumbai, along with his nephew Nirav Modi—who is in London awaiting extradition—is accused of defrauding Punjab National Bank (PNB) of Rs 13,850 crore.
The case, which shook the Indian banking sector in 2018, involved fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) and Foreign Letters of Credit (FLCs), allegedly issued through collusion with bank officials.
Choksi has cancer and was previously treated in Belgium, sources told Dutch newspapers in Belgium.
Choksi received a residence permit in Belgium based on family reunification, and mentioned his Antiguan nationality when applying.
Choksi’s cousin Nirav Modi, 54, who is involved in the bank fraud, had grown up in Antwerp.
Sharon Beavis, spokeswoman for the Federal Public Service Justice, confirmed that India has made an official extradition request for Choksi. However, the Federal Public Service Justice does not yet want to give details whether this will be followed up or what period will be attached to it, local media reported.
Choksi is being held in the Antwerp Begijnenstraat jail, pending possible surrender to India.
His arrest followed a request made of the Antwerp public prosecutor’s office, which does not wish to comment further.
Simon Bekaert, Mehul Choksi’s lawyer, said they are going to challenge the extradition.
“It goes without saying that we are going to challenge that extradition, we are also asking serious questions about the state of affairs (in India).
“We will start the necessary procedures for this in the coming days. Among other things, we will argue that India is not a democratic constitutional state, where our client cannot have a chance of a fair trial,” Bekaert told local Dutch dailies.
“This is also evident from the previous events in Antigua. Of course, the fact that Interpol subsequently withdrew the ‘Red Notice ’ did not just happen. Moreover, the physical condition of our client, who suffers from a form of blood cancer, does not allow extradition to India,” Bekaert added.
Interpol withdrew its ‘Red Notice’ for Choksi after a failed kidnapping attempt in 2021. Choksi was smuggled off Antigua by boat, but eventually ended up in a hospital on Dominica, another island in the Atlantic Ocean.
According to Choksi’s entourage, the Indian secret service was behind that kidnapping, but failed because the kidnappers in Dominica had forgotten to bribe a certain official.
“What happened there, defies imagination and reads like a bad spy thriller,” the entourage of Choksi told Gazet van Antwerpen at the end of March.
Choksi moved to Antwerp after that incident, partly because his wife has Belgian nationality. He has since lived in an apartment on the Antwerp Island.
Fierce attempts by the Indian authorities to extradite him have been unsuccessful all these months. Until his address on the Island leaked in the Indian media three weeks ago … through a medical note from an Antwerp GP.
“It was a deliberate leak from the GOI to increase pressure,” according to his entourage.
Choksi left India in 2018 before the scandal came to light and settled in Antigua and Barbuda, where he became a citizen through an investment programme.
The island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, in the eastern Caribbean Sea, is popular with wealthy individuals seeking second citizenship to avoid legal action, such as extradition.
During the failed kidnapping attempt in 2021, the Indian businessman was allegedly abused on a boat between Antigua and Dominica.
Choksi’s British lawyers claim that both the Indian and Antiguan governments were involved in the failed kidnapping attempt.
“He would have been beaten repeatedly until he lost consciousness. He was then tased, tied to a wheelchair and had a hood over his head”, they alleged.
Simon Bekaert, together with his father Paul, has successfully defended the interests of the refugee Catalan politician Carles Puigemont for several years. Spain wants to see Puigemont extradited and tried for his role in the October 2017 Catalan independence referendum.
UNI
