A Belgian court is learnt to have rejected the bail plea of fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi ahead of his extradition hearing there. Choksi, who was arrested in Belgium in April this year, had applied for bail on medical grounds last month.
Indian law enforcement agencies argued that Choksi was a habitual absconder and was likely to flee to another country if granted bail. The court accepted the argument and denied bond. Choksi is wanted in bank fraud cases worth over £1.39bn. He has been in a Belgian jail for over four months now. Ahead of his extradition hearing scheduled in mid-Sept, the CBI has provided Belgian prosecutors voluminous evidence of his involvement in economic offences in India and details of his escape from US and Antigua in the past, besides the two open warrants against him.
The Global Operations Centre of CBI is monitoring the developments in the case in direct coordination with foreign law enforcement agencies and Interpol channels. It has also hired the services of a local law firm to bolster the case.
Choksi had fled India in Jan 2018. He fled to the US and then to Antigua, whose citizenship he had obtained a year before. The CBI filed an FIR on complaint of bank fraud and started an investigation. In 2021, he vanished from Antigua and mysteriously surfaced in Dominica while attempting to escape to Cuba by boat. In 2022, five more cases were registered against him. He relocated to Belgium, for the second time, thereafter with his wife Preeti Choksi, who is a Belgian citizen, after securing an ‘F Residency Card’ there. Granted a residency in Belgium in Nov 2023, Choksi was finally arrested there on April 11 this year.
Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi, who is a UK jail, were wanted by the Indian law enforcement agencies for the £1.3bn Punjab National Bank fraud case where they have used letters of undertaking to cheat the bank. Both fled India in 2018 before the exposure of the case. Both of them are fighting their extradition to India now.