MISSION CHOKSI

An Indian fugitive in the Caribbean makes a sensational claim of abduction. Can India bring Mehul Choksi back to face justice?

- Sandeep Unnithan

How did a man wanted for India’s biggest bank scam land up on a distant Caribbean island nation—bruised, black-eyed, and bearing an incredulous tale of being a target of an alleged rendition? Since he fled India in 2018 after being wanted for defrauding the Punjab National Bank (PNB), the Mehul Choksi saga has taken some astonishing twists. None as sensational it would seem as the events of the past few days. Choksi, 62, alleged he was honey-trapped by a woman he had met on the island of Antigua, where he had been in hiding since he fled India. He was allegedly tased, beaten up, tortured by unidentified people of Indian origin, and spirited away on a yacht to Dominica, another island nation.

The diamond merchant, who was once the envy of the South Mumbai trade and carved up a multibillion-dollar global diamond empire, has his back to the wall. He is simultaneously battling the law of three countries—India, where the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) want him back to stand trial for bank fraud; Antigua, which recently stripped him of its citizenship after discovering an Interpol Red Corner Notice (RCN) against him; and Dominica, which is investigating his abduction story and his plea for deportation back to Antigua. Either ways, the proceedings over the next few days have put the fugitive diamantaire within a hair’s breadth of something which didn’t seem possible until recently— being thrust into a jet to face the law back in India.

THE GREAT ESCAPE ARTIST