Mehul Choksi - the 62-year-old fugitive diamond merchant who is wanted by the CBI and Enforcement Directorate in association with Rs 14,000 crore PNB loan fraud and money-laundering case, may have fled Antigua - Caribbean island nation and could have landed in Cuba. He had fled the Caribbean island in 2018.
Mr Choksi's lawyer, Vijay Aggarwal on Tuesday morning informed that his client is missing and the Antigua Police has filed a missing person’s report and has launched a manhunt.
He has taken citizenship of the Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda.
Antigua Newsroom - a local media agency quoted Police Commissioner Atlee Rodney that his officers were "following up on the whereabouts of Indian businessman Mehul Choksi".
Meanwhile, CBI has taken notice of Mehul Choksi going missing and is writing to the Antiguan embassy for more information, sources said.
Agency sources also said a Red Notice against Mr Choksi - issued by global police body Interpol in 2018 - meant they will be alerted if he entered any immigration point anywhere in the world.
Mr Choksi was last seen on Sunday, May 23 at 5.15 pm evening while leaving his residence in a car to go for dinner at a restaurant in the southern part of the island. His car was found later but there were no traces of him, a local channel reported. The Johnson Point Police Station in Antigua has filed a case on Mehul Choksi going missing from Antigua.
According to Prime Minister of Antigua, Gaston Browne, the government authorities are trying to track Mehul Choksi and citizens have been told to provide the police if they gave any information.
Mehul Choksi is involved in a long-running legal battle to stop his extradition to India. PM Browne last year had stated that once all his legal options are exhausted, his citizenship will be revoked.
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He had also made it clear that the Caribbean country will not provide a "safe harbour for criminals, for those who are involved in financial crimes".
Sources suggest that Choksi might have flown to Cuba where he owns a property. One of Mehul’s associates in Antigua was quoted by a media outlet as saying, “Mehul Choksi has left the country and most probably is currently residing in his other luxurious home in Cuba.”
Mehul Choksi might have left Antigua as the Indian government started putting pressure on Antiguan authorities to quash his citizenship.
Mehul Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi both are wanted in extorting Rs 13,500 crore of public money from the state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB), using letters of undertaking. After being repeatedly denied bail, Modi is in a London prison and is contesting extradition to India.
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Choksi had taken the citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda in 2017 using the Citizenship by Investment programme, before he escaped India in January 2018 and soon after the scam came to light. In an interview earlier, Mr Choksi had objected to all the charges against him calling them false, baseless and motivated by political expediency.