A Belgian court denied the bail request of MEHUL CHOKSI, who is wanted since 2018 by India in the massive billion dollar Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud and bribery case. Although his attorney plans to appeal, he faces extradition to his native India. Some sources have asserted that he had planned to free to Switzerland, through Belgium. Reviled in India by his victims, Choksi has alleged he is seriously ill for years, notwithstanding that he lived a lavish lifestyle in the Caribbean for years, spending the proceeds of crime abroad, to cheat justice.
The Choksi case is notable because it gave Antigua and Barbuda, which gave Choksi a CBI passport, even though he was already known to be under criminal investigation in India, and protected him for eight years from extradition proceedings, employing several different procedural roadblocks to shield him from justice. The case, which has given Antigua a black eye in the view of the international legal community, further drove home the fact that all existing Caribbean Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) programs corruptly issued passports to international criminals fleeing justice at home provided that they had cash to bribe the local officials who issued them passports, and thereafter saw that the local judiciary indefinitely delayed any pending extradition proceedings.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.