MUMBAI: We have seen in more than one James Bond films, like Sean Connery in 'Diamonds Are Forever' the fictional MI6 agent prancing around various nations trying to infiltrate diamond smuggling rings on the order of M. 

The story unwinding from the incredibly exotic Caribbean islands which are otherwise funloving and peaceful involving our very own 'M' has all the trappings of a Bond film, however in this case the M is Mehul Choksi and unlike Bond 007, he is on the other side of the law, a fugitive who has swindled our banks in the scam which has (as of 18 May 2018) ballooned to a whopping US$ 2.1 billion. 

As it has normally been in our country, the chronology of financial scams, economic frauds, serious crimes even terrorist acts are unfolded in the public, 'after' it has assumed unimaginable proportions. And in maximum such high profile cases, the perpetrators have very happily left the country (baring a few who prefered to face the law and clear their stand, but were then made the sacrificial lambs at the altar of media trial by the oscitant agencies). 

So, after they have committed the crimes, scamsters and terrorists, cooly go the airports in their luxury cars along with family members, clear the immigration, board a flight, and sip their wines in their first-class coupe looking at the city as they take off, some have even taken private jets. Without a doubt, they would have chuckled in mock at our system.

There are hundreds of examples of criminal and economic offenders absconding the country and even today in many cases the agencies have no clue where the fugitives are holed up. We may all be aware of high profile and dreaded criminals fleeing away, despite having serious alerts against them. For instance, most of us know of Dawood Ibrahim who fled for Dubai in 1986 despite being wanted by the Mumbai Police for the murder of Samad Khan. 

Terrorist Mushtaq 'Tiger' Memon, who along with Ibrahim, the mastermind behind the 1993 Mumbai blasts, one of the worst terror attacks in India that killed 257 people comfortably boarded a flight with a dozen members of his family and fled to Dubai. 

In 1984 there was the brazen case of Warren Anderson, chairman and CEO of the Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy considered among the world's worst industrial disaster which killed nearly 4000 people. Despite being held under arrest by Indian authorities, he was allowed to return to the United States, purportedly by a state arranged flight. 

Despite cases of manslaughter and India fighting several extradition cases against him, he was never deported, he lived a full life and died of natural death in his sea-facing beach house in Florida at age of 92.

When it comes to economic offences, the track record is even more dismal, couple of months ago the centre itself in a candid admission, has stated that 72 absconding economic offenders had defaulted on bank loans or committed other economic offences and fleed India since 2015.

In February 2020 Minister of State for Finance S.P. Shukla informing the Lok Sabha that a total of 72 Indians charged with frauds or financial irregularities are currently abroad said that the government was making an all-out effort to bring back the culprits by Look Out Circular, Red Corner Notice, extradition requests or action under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018, depending on the cases.

Some of the names of these infamous 72 include the most high profile of this gang, like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Neeshal Modi, Mehul Choksi, Lalit Modi, Nitin J. Sandesara, Dipti Chetankumar Sandesara, Umesh Parekh, Kamlesh Parekh, Nilesh Parekh, Ashish Jobanputra, Priti Ashish Jobanputra, Hitesh N. Patel, Mayuri Patel, Rajiv Goyal, Alka Goyal, Pushpesh Baid, Jatin Mehta, Eklavya Garg, Vinay Mittal, Sabya Seth, Ritesh Jain and others.

Interestingly hype is only created in only those matters which media selectively picks up and beats it to death. 

So Mallya and Modi with Choksi becomes popular absconders when the crimes of some others are even bigger in magnitude. 

For instance, as a matter of fact, by its own admission the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has said that having cheated Indian banks to the tune of Rs 14, 500 crores, the Sandesara family (Nitin, Dipti, Chetan and Hitesh) of Vadodara based Sterling Biotech Ltd (SBL) has superseded the infamous 2018 Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, in which diamantaire Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi committed fraud to the tune of Rs 13,700 crore.

In 2018, ED told a Delhi court that it was not able to track the Sandesara family and another accused including Hiteshkumar Narendrabhai Patet, thus notices could not be severed. The agency told the court that it is suspected that the accused at present may be residing in Nigeria, the United States or the United Arab Emirates. 

It would be noteworthy to mention that in the last five years the government has been able to bring back two fugitive economic offenders to face trial in India, one of them is industrialist Vinay Mittal, who was wanted in seven bank fraud cases worth Rs 40 crore, extradited to India from Indonesia in October 2018. And, Sunny Kalra who was brought back by CBI in March 2020 from Muscat in Oman, charged with a Rs 10 crore loan fraud involving PNB.

The maths is pretty simple, two fugitive absconders bought back to India in the last five years, allegedly defrauded banks to the tune of Rs 50 crores collectively. 

Coming back to our Bonds, the diamantaire duo Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, apparently seemed to have written their script with all the sequences of escaping even when they actively siphoning off PNB with their dubious methods, off course in connivance with some bank staff. 

The scam came to light on 29th January 2018, when PNB filed a complaint with the CBI, alleging that Nirav, Ami Modi, Nishal Modi and Mehul Choksi, all partners of M/s Diamond R US, M/s Solar Exports and M/s Stellar Diamonds, in collusion with two bank officials committed the offence of cheating against PNB and caused a loss. 

The agencies swung into action, raided their house, offices, godowns but alas all they could do was paste notices for the accused to be present before them. Weeks ago all of them had already caught their flight of freedom and were safely in foreign territory having secured legitimate asylum. 

After some deep digging, it was known that Nirav Modi, who holds an Indian passport was the first one to have left India on January 1, along with his brother Nishal, a Belgian citizen. His uncle and business partner Choksi, left on January 4. As Bond heroin, it seems Modi's wife Ami, a US citizen, remained back to see what was transpiring in the media and the investigation but seeing nothing much was happening, she too left on January 6.

It was also learnt that Modi in the true Bond-style had planned to flee around his brother Neehal's wedding in December 2016, however, demonetisation was announced and he decided to postpone his plan.

Already, for the past many months, Modi had allegedly started taking out all his money looted from PNB from the country through multiple layers with fictitious companies in 5 countries including USA, UK Malaysia, Singapore and China via Macau, Beijing, Hongkong, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur. Later the funds from all these cities were routed to London and from there to Hawaii, Las Vegas and New York before moving to his Swiss accounts.

Meanwhile, uncle Bond Choksi, secured Antigua and Barbuda (A&B) citizenship under the Caribbean nation's Citizenship by Investment Programme (CIP) in November 2017. During the process in a statement made via his attorney, Choksi had said that his desire to expand his business and roam freely around the globe motivated him to apply for the citizenship of the Caribbean island nation. He landed in Antigua on January 5 and took the oath of allegiance on January 15.

The passport of the Caribbean nation provides visa-free travel to 132 countries and Choksi could very well land in any part of the world without obtaining a visa. 

Meanwhile, back in India Choksi also liquidated most of his holdings and transferred his funds to his offshore banking account. It made it very easy for him that the neighbouring Clyaman Island is one of the best places to launder money from anywhere in the world. So his escapade was also well planned. 

After the illegitimate money was safely gone the last thing Modi wanted to do was to move most of his stock of expensive jewellery to New York through shipment, but in December 2017, somebody from PNB (other than 2 main accused) tipped him off that PNB top officials had smelt a rat and were talking to CBI officers. A complaint was to be filed very soon.

Though he sounded his entire family and uncle Choksi in his true Bond style they remained to host a new year celebration in India post which they decided to leave one by one. As planned Modi did try to move the stock of expensive jewellery to New York through shipment, but was intercepted by the agencies and sealed. 

After deliberating internally for more than 3 weeks PNB officials submitted a written complaint to the Bank Security & Fraud Cell (BSFC) of CBI in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) and at the same time the media was also sounded off, the scam had to be broken in true media style after all. But by then the accused were gone. 

In mid-2018 Modi's presence in the UK was confirmed by British authorities, when a TV channel reporter identified him and confronted him. 'No comments' is all he said. He was later tracked down to a three-bedroom flat occupying half of a floor in an upscale tower block of luxury apartments, where rent is estimated to be around £17,000 a month. He was arrested based on Interpol Alert and is currently lodged in London Jail after a request from CBI and ED, and faces extradition to India.

Recently a court dismissed his grounds of 'mental health concerns,' if sent to India. UK extradition and district judge Samuel Goozee in February 2021 ruled that Modi will be extradited to India to stand trial. 

He said Modi has a case to answer for in India, and that Barrack 12 at Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai is fit for him. So Bond number one can well be on his way home very soon. 

Coming to Bond M, Choksi, his valid Indian passport was revoked in February 2018 when it was learned that he had acquired the citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda. India also alerted the A&B government, to detain him and prevent his movement by land, air or sea. Latter, New Delhi handed over a request to Antigua for Choksi’s extradition.

Initially, Antigua refused to extradite or arrest Mehul Choksi, citing a lack of extradition treaty, but continues diplomacy has softened their stand and Prime Minister Gaston Browne said that once he exhausts his legal recourse in Antigua he will be handed over to India. 

Early this year the Browne administration also tried to cancel his citizenship however as confirmed by Browne's Chief of Staff Hurst, the fugitive diamantaire had taken legal recourse and the matter would take about seven years to be resolved. "With enough money to pursue these legal challenges, 2027 is the earliest for a final resolution," he said adding that even if Choksi loses the appeal, which is likely, he could move the Court of Appeals and then the Privy Council in London.

"It is not the case that at this time he (Mehul Choksi) could be returned to India because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda. Thus, it would be many years before he is sent back," Hurst said.

Three months later, as we are slowly coming out of the terrible second wave of the pandemic, a couple of days ago we get to know that Choksi reportedly went missing from Antigua and Barbuda, and a day later it was reported that he was captured in neighbouring Carribian nation of Dominica. The authorities it seems we're already sounded off that Choksi would be entering illegally. 

With a population of less than 1 lakh, Antigua and Barbuda is a popular retirement home for billionaires from around the world, it is highly improbable that with the resources he has in his access, Choksi who is in a safe haven, protected by law, would easily try to escape on his own, in a boat risking his life just like a Bond. 

Browne tells the media that he has appealed to the Dominican Government to detain Choksi for entering their country illegally, to make him persona non grata and have him deported directly to India. 

As the news comes in that he is in Dominca Choksi's legal team moves a habeas corpus petition in the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) in Dominica. 

His lawyer in Dominica, Wayne Marsh, tells the media that his client claimed that he was picked up at Jolly Harbour in Antigua and Barbuda by men looking like Indian and Antiguan policemen and was forcefully put in a vessel and bought to Dominica and had visible 'marks of torture on his body which included swollen eyes and arm severely bruised.

The ECSC , after taking note of submissions made in Mehul Choksi's petition, restrained Dominican authorities from moving him out of Dominica until a further hearing in the matter.

Choksi's lawyer in India Vijay Aggarwal said, "There is something fishy and I guess it was a strategy to take him to another country so that there are chances of sending him back to India. So I don't know what forces are operating. Only the time will tell."

Meanwhile, a day later on Sunday a Qatar Airways private jet landed at the Douglas-Charles airport in Dominica. And although neither the Indian nor the Dominican government say anything, 100 nautical miles away in A&B, Browne confirms to a radio channel that the jet is from India.

The publicly accessible flight path of the Bombardier Global 5000 jet shows that it took off from New Delhi on May 28 and reached Dominica via Madrid.

Browne said, "My understanding is that the Indian government has sent certain documents from courts in India to confirm that he is indeed a fugitive and my understanding is that the documents will be utilised in the court case as you know the judge in Dominica has put a stay on deportation till Wednesday. So Indian government seems to be going all out to make sure he is repatriated to India to stand trial," 

The next hearing in the matter at the ECSC is scheduled to take place on June 2.

If all the above sounds like an Ian Fleming flick then you may as well as stay tuned, as the Bond potboiler continues.