Mehul Choksi, a rich diamond vendor whom India is searching for in reference to a fraud case involving one among India’s largest state banks, has been arrested in Belgium, his lawyer stated on Monday.
Choksi, 65, is being sought in accusations associated to makes an attempt to dam publicly owned Punjab Nationwide Financial institution from an almost $1.8 billion fraud within the incident that sparked a nationwide scandal when it was launched in 2018.
Chokshi left India simply earlier than the authorities have been made public that 12 months following accusations in opposition to him. Based on Indian information media, he has since lived within the Caribbean and Belgium.
Law enforcement officials in Antwerp, Belgium, the center of Belgian diamond commerce, arrested Choksi on Saturday, in keeping with the Belgian prosecutor’s workplace, which stated they’d requested an arrest.
Belgian authorities didn’t instantly present particulars of the circumstances that led to Choksi’s arrest, however his lawyer, Vijay Aggarwal, stated in an interview that the primary authorities investigators, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, had requested for Choksi’s extradition.
Aggarwal stated he’s searching for instant launch of his shopper, claiming he’s present process most cancers remedy attributable to sickness.
“He is not a flight danger,” Agarwal stated at a press convention in Delhi. “His situation may be very unstable.”
Aggarwal denies accusations of fraud within the case. Since leaving India, he has additionally frolicked in two Caribbean international locations, Dominica and Antigua, in keeping with Indian information media.
Chokshi’s ne Nirab Modi, as soon as one among India’s most well-known high-end jewellers, was arrested in London in 2019 in reference to financial institution fraud. Modi, who additionally denied any fraud, had fled India a couple of weeks earlier than he, Chokshi and others denounced him within the fraud case. Modi stays incarcerated within the UK as he fought Indian efforts handy him over.
The lawsuits in opposition to Chokshi and Modi strengthened India’s notion that taxpayer-owned banks are funding the rising elite luxurious way of life. The try and convey the 2 to justice has captivated the Indian individuals.
Jeanna Smialek Contributed report from Brussels Mike Ives From Seoul, Korea.
