Lalit Modi Vanuatu bid has failed, but list of fugitives in safe havens grows

Besides Vanuatu, there are others: St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Albania, Cyprus – countries and territories which have handed over their passports to Indian economic offenders, either knowingly or unknowingly, often after money was pumped into their citizenship-via-investment schemes.

Besides Lalit Modi, others who have managed to obtain Vanuatu citizenship despite being embroiled in ongoing cases of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal, promoters of the illegal Mahadev betting syndicate.

But Dr Saurabh Kumar Pandey, ED’s Special Public Prosecutor, pointed out that they managed to detain the duo in Dubai and ensure they did not settle down in Vanuatu as planned.

“They had acquired citizenship in 2022. But now, there is an Interpol red corner notice against them; arrest warrant and extradition proceedings have begun from Dubai. So, citizenship will not help them as it may be helping other such economic offenders,” Pandey said.

There are two diamantaires who have taken the citizenship of countries in the Caribbean while being under the scanner of Indian agencies for major frauds.

Mehul Choksi acquired citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda in 2018, months before he was named in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case. Last year, he won a major round via the High Court of Antigua and Barbuda, which ruled that he should be given all privileges of a citizen of the country, further delaying his extradition to India.

There is also Jatin Mehta, promoter of Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery Ltd, and his wife, who have become citizens of St Kitts and Nevis, known for being offshore financial havens with which India does not have an extradition treaty. After giving up his Indian citizenship around 2013, Mehta and his family moved to London. In 2022, a UK court pronounced a “worldwide freezing order” naming him and members of his family.

Increasingly, the pattern of fugitives obtaining foreign citizenship is being mentioned in prosecution complaints filed by the ED as well as during arguments in court, as it did in the case against Aditya Talwar, son of corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar, in the civil aviation scam.

In 2019, the ED told the court: “In order to escape the clutches of the investigating agency, the Petitioner (Talwar) acquired a foreign citizenship in October, 2017, after the investigation of the instant case was initiated by the Respondent (ED) and acquired the citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda only in a bid to evade the process of law.”

Supreme Court lawyer Kapil Sibal, who had appeared for Aditya Talwar at an earlier stage challenging his involvement in the aviation scam, said several Indian offenders were now frequently choosing the foreign citizenship route to prevent imminent action from agencies like the ED and the CBI.

Sibal told The Indian Express: “There are two obvious reasons for this. People want to avoid extradition to India after they have been named in a case. And also since the legal processes in India are so slow, what should they do? The cases linger on for years and years.”

In November 2023, The Indian Express reported that there were several economic offenders among the 66 Indians who had availed the “Golden Passport’’ scheme of Cyprus, mostly in 2016. Among them was Anubhav Aggarwal, a businessman who is a key accused in the NSEL case in which investors were allegedly cheated of over `3,600 crore. In 2020, he was arrested in Abu Dhabi.

Aggarwal was not the only one on the list of Indians who acquired Cypriot citizenship under the now defunct investment scheme to have had a brush with the anti-money laundering agency.

Among the early recipients of the “Golden Passport” scheme were Virkaran Awasthy, a businessman from Uttar Pradesh, and his wife Ritika Awasthy. They acquired Cypriot citizenship in 2016 and moved to London. Later, they were charged by the Delhi Police and the ED. The allegation was that as Directors of Bush Foods Overseas Pvt Ltd, the couple had duped farmers on the pretext of wheat and paddy purchase. In December 2021, their extradition was allowed by courts in the UK.

There is also Nesamanimaran Muthu, better known as MGM Maran, a Tamil Nadu-based businessman and former chairman of the Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank Limited. He and his company, Agrifurane Industries Private Limited, have been in the crosshairs of the ED and he too has Cypriot citizenship.

In an official release, the ED had mentioned MGM Maran’s Cypriot citizenship: “In order to escape the reach of Indian laws, MGM Maran surrendered his Indian citizenship. Not only that, it was also found that MGM Maran also started transferring his wealth from India to overseas in order to keep the same out of reach of the Indian law enforcement agencies in the garb of overseas direct investments.”

In the case of Nitin Sandesara, the promoter of Sterling Biotech and members of his family, who were declared fugitive economic offenders in 2020, the choice of citizenship was that of Albania which shares a coastline with the Adriatic Sea.

Sandesara, who left India in 2017 figured in the Pandora Papers for setting up a string of six offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands after he left India by which time his business had already come under the scanner. He was even appointed an Honorary Consul of Albania in 2019, which was cancelled once the authorities in Tirana realised he was accused in a money laundering case and bank fraud case in India.