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Economic offender absconding for over 25 yrs, extradited by CBI from US
A CBI team took custody of Monika Kapoor from the US authorities on Tuesday and is expected to bring her in an American Airlines flight to India by Wednesday night
An economic offender, Monika Kapoor, who was involved in an import-export fraud and was on the run for over 25 years, has been extradited by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the United States, the agency said on Wednesday.
A CBI team took custody of Kapoor from the US authorities on Tuesday and is expected to bring her in an American Airlines flight to India by Wednesday night.
“This extradition marks a major breakthrough in the pursuit of justice and reiterates CBI’s
commitment to bringing fugitives to face the law in India, irrespective of international boundaries. The CBI team is returning to India with the fugitive. Monika Kapoor will be produced before the court concerned and she will now face the trial,” a CBI spokesperson said in a statement.
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On July 4, in a similar breakthrough, based on CBI and Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) efforts, Nirav Modi’s brother Nehal Modi was arrested in the US. CBI has managed to secure the return of over 120 fugitives in the last 3-4 years through extradition or deportation route and with the assistance of Interpol.
Owner of Monika Overseas, Monika Kapoor, along with her two brothers - Rajan Khanna and Rajiv Khanna - had allegedly forged documents including shipping bills, invoices and bank certificates - for jewelry transactions and then used these documents to obtain licences from the Indian government to import raw materials duty free.
CBI, which launched a probe in the matter in 2002, found in its probe that as part of the conspiracy, after getting the licences from the Indian government, Kapoor sold them to a company - Deep Exports, Ahmedabad on a premium. Deep Exports used these licences and imported duty free gold which caused loss to the government exchequer to the extent of ₹1.44 crore, the spokesperson said. As a result, there was a loss of around $6,79,000 to the government exchequer.
CBI filed a charge sheet against her and her brothers on March 31, 2004 for alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery.
While the brothers were convicted in 2017, Kapoor had been absconding since 1999 and didn’t join the investigation and trial, and was declared a proclaimed offender on February 13, 2006.
India sought her extradition in October 2010, which was cleared by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York under the bilateral extradition treaty between India and the US in 2012.
She appealed to the secretary of state, claiming she would face torture if extradited and also tapped a number of legal options on various grounds in the US.
The secretary of state subsequently signed a surrender warrant after rejecting Kapoor’s argument that her return would violate the United Nations Convention Against Torture, as implemented by the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 (FARRA).
After years of legal proceedings, including multiple challenges in US courts and administrative forums, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit finally upheld the extradition in March 2025.
