Mumbai: Fugitive diamond trader Mehul Choksi, wanted in connection with the Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan fraud case, was arrested by Belgium police, his lawyer confirmed on Monday. The arrest came just as Choksi was planning to flee to Switzerland for medical treatment. Choski is accused of a Rs 12,636 crore fraud at the state-run Punjab National Bank along with his nephew Nirav Modi, his wife Ami Modi, and his brother Neeshal Modi.
According to Enforcement Directorate (ED) sources, Choksi misled the Belgium government by citing humanitarian grounds for medical treatment and used forged and false documents to support his claims. When Indian authorities realised that Choksi was planning to upgrade his status to an F+ residency card, which would make extradition from Belgium more difficult, they moved quickly to request his extradition. In response, the Belgium authorities halted the conversion of his F residency card to F+ status.
Choksi had applied for cancer treatment at Hirslanden Klinik Aarau, a specialised cancer facility in Switzerland. He had nearly secured admission and completed most of the necessary procedures. However, before he could leave Belgium, he was taken into provisional custody by authorities in Antwerp. Choksi’s arrest by Belgium authorities is on basis of two non bailable warrants issued by Mumbai court in 2018 and 2021. After his arrest, his advocate Vijay Aggarwal said, “My client, Mehul Choksi, has been arrested in Belgium and, at the moment, he is in custody.
We will be starting the process of filing an appeal against this, and then, as a process of appeal, we will be requesting that he be pulled out of prison. The major grounds for the plea are his ill health and that he is undergoing cancer treatment…” Choksi is currently lodged in a Belgium Jail and his bail application hearing will take place at least after a week. For this period, he will be in jail, sources told India Today.
