Renowned financial crimes investigator Kenneth Rijock’s report has questioned the legal system in Antigua. His online report, published on Blogger, claims Mehul Choksi bribed government officials, including senior Antigua police official, Adonis Henry, to extend his stay in the island nation.
Multiple witnesses report that Choksi and Inspector Henry have been meeting at least three times a day at Al Porto, a Jolly Harbor restaurant reportedly owned by Choksi, wrote Rijock in his financial crime blog.
Although an Antiguan court ordered Choksi be extradited to India (case dates back to 2019), where he stands damned for allegedly “stealing the equivalent of millions of dollars,” corrupt government officials, judges and law enforcement agents in Antigua have successfully delayed the proceeding against the illicit receipt of substantial bribes.
Choksi, a billionaire due to fraudulent consumer business practices, and major bank fraud, has avoided Indian justice for several years, after he obtained a Citizenship by Investment (CIP/CBI) passport in Antigua, notwithstanding an outstanding Interpol Red Notice seeking his arrest.
The report also states that Choksi has managed to “influence” Antigua magistrate Conliffe Clarke through illegal payments. “These were made purely for dilatory purposes, to indefinitely delay pending extradition,” wrote Rijock in his blog post.
Rijock said that his sources confirmed that Clarke and Henry conspired together to interfere with Interpol’s efforts to detain him for extradition to face the judiciary in India.
Rijock’s article, supported by various facts, describes how the diamond merchant failed to flee from Antigua to Cuba and then fabricated a kidnapping scenario.
Choksi intended to flee from Antigua to Cuba to avoid extradition since Cuba and India do not have an extradition treaty. The Indian fugitive was dumped off on the coast of Dominica in May 2021, after he refused to pay the agreed-upon payment to the smugglers’ crew of the ship transporting him to Cuba, according to the investigator.
Interpol issued a Red Notice against the fugitive, involved in the Punjab National Bank Scam in India, before he fled the country in 2018.
A Red Notice is a request to locate and provisionally arrest an individual pending extradition. It is issued by the General Secretariat at the request of a member country or an international tribunal based on a valid national arrest warrant and it is not an international arrest warrant.
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