Mehul Choksi discloses names of alleged abductors to Antigua police, probe ordered

Mehul Choksi's lawyers alleged that he was kidnapped from Jolly Harbour in Antigua by policemen looking Antiguan and Indian and brought to Dominica on a boat

PNB scam-accused and fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi on June 6 disclosed the names of his alleged abductors to Antiguan police. The Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda has started investigations into the alleged abduction of Choksi to neighbouring Dominica on a complaint filed by his lawyers, Prime Minister Gaston Browne told local media.

Browne said that Choksi's lawyers gave the names of people involved in the alleged abduction to the police commissioner in a complaint, the Antigua News Room reported.

The Antigua and Barbuda prime minister also said that if the claims are true, then it is a serious matter. Browne said police are taking the complaint seriously, the report said.

Read: Mehul Choksi's counsel files affidavit in Dominica court, says left India only for treatment

Choksi mysteriously went missing on May 23 from Antigua and Barbuda where he has been staying since 2018 as a citizen. He was detained in Dominica for illegal entry after a possible romantic escapade with his rumoured girlfriend.

His lawyers alleged that he was kidnapped from Jolly Harbour in Antigua by policemen looking Antiguan and Indian and brought to Dominica on a boat.

Choksi was brought before a Roseau magistrate, on the orders of the Dominica high court, to answer charges of illegal entry where he pleaded not guilty but was denied bail.

Also read | Pirates of the Caribbean: the real Mehul Choksi story isn’t about honeytraps and spies, but the world’s greatest safe haven for crime

The Dominica High Court has adjourned the hearing of the habeas corpus petition filed by his lawyers. Subsequently, a multi-agency team that had gone to Dominica for the deportation of the fugitive diamantaire returned to India in a Qatar Airways private jet.

Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi had fled India in the first week of January 2018 weeks before the Rs 13,500 crore scam in Punjab National Bank (PNB) rocked the Indian banking industry.

The duo allegedly bribed the officials of the state-run bank to get Letters of Undertaking (LoU) on the basis of which they availed from overseas banks which remained unpaid.