Authors of ‘Escaped’ share why London is the favoured destination of Indian fugitives

Danish Khan and Ruhi Khan’s recent book offers a historical perspective on how the UK came to be a hub for those on the run from cases in India. In an interview, the authors break down the finer points of police investigation, extradition proceedings and legal loopholes that contribute to this phenomenon

As crime reporters working in India for several years, Danish and Ruhi Khan had routinely covered the Arthur Road Jail but rarely did the duo get to know the Mumbai Central Prison as intimately as after moving to the UK about a decade ago. There, they joined international press crews in attending trials for extradition requests, where Indian authorities showed the British courts pictures, videos, and statements to prove that the cells were safe and humane enough for fugitives to be brought back to.

London, with its high standards of human rights and strict rule of law, has steadily become the preferred port of call for people fleeing investigation and imprisonment in India. The Khans, who write and broadcast news from the UK and Europe for Indian channels and publications, have closely followed noteworthy escapes such as those of beer baron Vijay Mallya and diamantaire Nirav Modi. They unpack these and 10 other cases of fugitives attempting this route to dodge legal action in India — including for murder, terror, sexual assault, smuggling and financial fraud — in their recent book ‘Escaped’ published by Penguin Random House. 

In a conversation with Mid-day online, the authors break down the finer points of police investigation, extradition proceedings and legal loopholes that have contributed to this phenomenon.

Journalists Danish Khan and Ruhi Khan, who write and broadcast news from the UK and the wider European region for Indian channels and publications, are the co-authors of 'Escaped'. Photo courtesy/Danish Khan  

Here are edited excerpts from the interview:

When did the UK-India extradition cases go from being a journalistic assignment to a book project for you? 

Ruhi: It was a very organic progression of what we were anyways doing as journalists covering these cases. I was into reading about other cases and looking into case laws. It was all so fascinating. We had so much material that we thought was brilliant that wasn't out there. There was no book on extradition that delved into cases and the kind of details we had. There also seemed to be a lot of interest in the public thanks to Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi's cases that got primetime coverage. So there was curiosity, not just for us, but also among the public to understand some of the finer laws in a way that is not heavy on jargon but is more accessible. This was the genesis of the book.

What has really allowed London to emerge as this hub for Indian fugitives to hide in plain sight?

Ruhi: A lot of people are coming to London because they can live their life here as normally as possible while the cases go on in the court. That takes a few years and there's always hope at the end of it that they may be let off. London gives them that opportunity to have the lifestyle they are used to. Mallya was very recently spotted at this posh club called Annabel’s while his court cases are going on, while the courts have asked him to be extradited and while he's fighting bankruptcy. He went for cricket matches. Nirav Modi was walking his dog in Oxford Street before he was spotted. He set up a business and was living in a posh flat in central London. Sanjay Bhandari has a posh Mayfair address where he is now hiding. Iqbal Mirchi lived a very open life, he had family and businesses here. He was in fact even walking with his friends in Hyde Park just before his death so he lived life to the fullest. And over the years, many of them were let off, which gave them the freedom back like [the arms dealer] Ravi Shankaran or [music director] Nadeem Saifi.

Danish: Also, because it is not such a quick process to have them back. It has to go through various judiciary channels. Before that, the Ministry of External Affairs in India has to initiate the request. Extradition is also a busy sector for lawyers so you can hire the best of minds to help negotiate the legal framework. There's also the rule of law in England, so there are no shortcuts. The extradition treaty is very clear.

Indian jeweller Nirav Modi being driven away from the Westminster Magistrates Court in London on May 30, 2019 in a prison van after a hearing in his extradition case. Photo / AFP

How has the extradition law in the UK — and the ability of Indian authorities to meet its requirements — evolved over the years? 

Danish: A lot of high profile people from India have been coming to the United Kingdom for a very long time. There were links between both countries because of the colonial empire and even post-Independence because of the opportunities that the UK provided. So there has always been a constant flow of young professionals or millionaires or students. The extradition treaty was filed in the background of Sikh separatism in the 80s. After the assassination of Indira Gandhi, New Delhi started making more loud demands with London for an extradition treaty. There was no extradition treaty until then, it was an arrangement that continued from the colonial times with some minor changes. The extradition treaty was signed keeping in mind the necessity to have troublemakers or people who are creating a riot kind of a situation in India to be sent back, especially in the context of Punjab and Kashmir. Now what we are seeing are people who are committing financial frauds. So the nature of the cases has changed a lot and that has some lacunae because the law was worked on to have terrorists sent back. But now we have seen a flurry of alleged financial fraudsters who are wanted. 

Ruhi: In the beginning, we saw a lot of people were successfully extradited, and then there came a phase where India kept losing extradition cases around the period of Iqbal Mirchi and Nadeem Saifi. It sort of built the confidence amongst many that maybe it's easier to escape to the UK because there is a way to wriggle out of court proceedings and not get extradited. The main reasons were jail conditions and shoddy paperwork, and a lot of fugitives have been banking on these two things. But we are seeing this increasingly with Mallya’s case that assurances by governments are working to convince the court that jail conditions would be on a par with what the British courts expect. Also the investigating agencies, especially in cases which are constantly under public scrutiny and under the media glare, are doing a far better job submitting paperwork and corroborative evidence, which is turning the tide in some ways.

You mention financial fraudsters are increasingly making this escape. Are there economic aspects to why the UK has become a fugitive haven?

Danish: Yes. Nirav Modi, for example, came here by virtue of his ‘investor visa’. London is a financial hub of the world — for insurance, banking, financial services. They're always open to wealthy, high net worth individuals. In some shape or form, the UK has always allowed people to come if they are ready to park certain funds in the bank. When these people take this route, the UK government does run a background check. But if that person has no case at the time of applying for the UK visa, or is not wanted by anybody, there is no reason for them to deny them a visa. In Nirav Modi's case, he got the visa and then the fraud came out. So when the fraud comes out later, because they already have the visa, they cannot just be sent back. That's when the courts step in and the whole process has to be followed. 

Ruhi: It’s also a simpler route to get residency. Two million pounds, which is nothing for many people with businesses in India, is all you need to invest to get your first investor visa. Subsequently, you have to get it renewed after a couple of years. And then you have your residency so even if India takes away the passport, you can still live in this country while you battle out things. There's no reason for you to be deported straight away if you have the right to live in this country. So a lot of businessmen in India are actually doing that. In fact, there is fear with Raj Kundra, the investigating authorities are opposing his bail, saying he might escape to London.

What is the Mumbai connection in these India-UK extradition battles?

Danish: The earliest case that we write about is of this person called Mubarak Ali Ahmed who was wanted by Bombay Police on very serious fraud charges. It's a very dramatic story straight out of a Bollywood flick. He was living in Churchgate in the CCI quarters and attending the trial around the 1950s, and he just escaped from his room in CCI, where he had had a Mumbai Police constable watching over him. Ultimately, he landed in London. It was a Bombay police officer who traveled from Bombay to London in 1952 and got Mubarak Ali Ahmed back to face the trial at the Bombay Sessions Court as it was known. So in fact the first major success that India scored in getting a fugitive from London was in a case pertaining to Bombay. Then we had Nadeem Saifi and Iqbal Mirchi. Again, it was the paperwork from the Mumbai Police that formed the backbone of the cases against them but it flopped. Iqbal Mirchi’s case was very surprising because the case didn't even go for a trial and the magistrate said there is no evidence because of the  shocking and shoddy paperwork.

Ruhi: The [antiques smuggling] Narang brothers in Bombay, they had this interesting swimming pool [with a glass flooring] in their bungalow in Pali Hill which was once the talk of not just the city but the entire country. Even with the new cases, we keep seeing a Mumbai connection with the Arthur Road Jail. The jail authorities have done fantastic work because one of the big points of contention in Mallya’s case was jail conditions, and many fugitives managed to wriggle out earlier citing human rights abuses in Indian jails. And Arthur Road Jail was very good at sending every kind of documentation that the British Court asked for, whether it was photographs, videos, assurances by the government. That also helped turn the tide.

The book briefly mentions that the Mallya, Modi and Mirchi cases “helped dislodge the idea of Gulf states as the most favoured destination for those on the run”. That is an important shift. Can you elaborate on it?

Danish: In the 80s, and 90s, the Middle East was the destination for many underworld gangsters who escaped from Bombay. It was such a huge process to get them back, most of them ended in failures. The Middle East emerged as this gateway because it's not that far from India, just a couple of hours away. It's relatively open for people to travel there, short term. You also have other regions around, where you can use the Middle East as a base to collaborate with other criminals. And the bar was very high to get anyone extradited from the Middle East so there were numerous examples of failures. The most wanted gangster Dawood Ibrahim is known to have stayed there before he went away to Pakistan. As far as the UK was concerned, the issue was there is still the rule of law, so that things have to go in a certain fashion. The case of Nadeem Saifi is very interesting. Saifi was in London and the Mumbai police commissioners announced in a press conference that he is the prime accused. What we found out is that one reason behind publicly proclaiming at a very early stage that he was the prime accused was to ensure that he doesn't go to the Middle East. So they made a request to the UK to arrest him. That was the strategy because it was very difficult to get people from the Middle East. Now that has actually turned around. People are now saying that it's much easier to get fugitives from Dubai. In fact, some lawyers here are saying that a lot of international laws are being broken by the transfer of criminals from Dubai to India, but that doesn't happen in London.

Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya leaving the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in central London on February 11, 2020, after a hearing into his appeal against his extradition to India. Photo / AFP

What kind of lives do the fugitives lead in London? Any signs, at all, of austerity?

Ruhi: (Laughs) Vijay Mallya had limits on his spending but the limit that the Court imposed on him is still way above the average budget of a household. He has two massive houses spread over acres of land. [Danish and I] went there, not inside of course, as we were not invited. It is quite an interesting aside, because in central London his house overlooks Regent’s Park and in fact, it is so big we found out there was once a proposal to start a private school there. That didn't happen and Mallya bought that property. From that you get an idea of the scale, the enormity of that place. Of course he has been subjected to a lot of court battles by Indian banks and many details tumbled out from those court documents. For example, he spends over a lakh rupees for groceries every week. He spends 15 to 20 lakh rupees in just maintaining his cars every week and he has a membership of posh clubs that go into 1000s of GBP. But knowing Mallya, who lives life king size, perhaps he considers this ‘scaling down’. As we say in our book, the very idea of having a limit would be a revolting thought for someone like him.

What is your view on how the British press tends to cover these cases?

Ruhi: I think it's very selective. The cases have to have some interest or public interest in the UK. Mallya, just because he owns businesses here and he's been quite flamboyant, has coverage. Nirav Modi hit the British fashion scene with a bang when he launched his store in new Bond Street. He had some of the biggest celebs endorse it and no one had heard about him before so everyone got very curious. This also probably helped the Telegraph journalists to be the first ones to spot him. Not so much the others but with Arti Dhir and Kaval Raijada, just because the crime was so gruesome — these two are British residents who adopted a child in Gujarat and then allegedly had him murdered for insurance money. Now, this is quite an interesting story for the British tabloids so we did have the Daily Mail chase them around quite a bit. There was also Hanif Tiger, who was wanted in the Surat blast case. The issue that got the British press interested in him was the fact that his lawyers were paid by the British taxpayers, because he said that he does not have enough money for his legal fees. In Britain, people can get access to funds so that the lawyers are paid and they have somebody to defend them. That case got a lot of attention because it says that the taxpayers are paying for someone who is facing very serious terror charges.

To which places and people did research take you? What were the challenges in piecing together events on both sides of this subject? 

Danish: As far as the current cases were concerned, we were on solid ground having seen those deliberations and spoken to the lawyers from both sides. But the historical cases were a bit challenging, because then we had to dig out old judgments, for example, and the judgments of the High Court and also of the Magistrate's Court. We visited the Metropolitan London Archives to access the court registers. We went to The National Archives here in Richmond where we got a lot of background to the whole process of extradition. It also involved speaking to top notch barristers involved in extradition which is a very busy and lucrative practice. In the Indian law enforcement agencies, we tracked down some of the officers who were kind enough to share documents and notes. It was a combination of legwork and sitting in the libraries. There were archival issues of newspapers that we looked at in the British Library, over the last 50-70 years.

Ruhi: Our stories in the book do not just start with the extradition cases. We included a lot of background information about the crime. For example, with match fixing, we looked up what was happening in that period and what kind of allegations were made, to create that backdrop to the emergence of these crimes and then the subsequent extradition. It was a lot of archival work but also speaking to people who were covering these cases around that time to get more eyewitness accounts so that we could keep it as lucid and clear in the book as possible.

What were some of the most surprising discoveries in the course of writing the book?

Danish: One of Mallya’s defenses was that he should not be sent back to India because the jails are not good — they will breach his human rights and his health is not in the best shape. But I found a document which revealed that Mallya’s grandfather in fact had been a medical doctor in Indian jails. He was responsible for the upkeep of the jails and for ensuring that the inmates have access to health care, he did a fantastic job and even got promotions. A huge contrast that now his grandson was telling British courts that Indian jails are not good enough for him. 

Ruhi: Another thing we kept digging for in these cases was how properties were bought, when they were bought, and who owns them. That is a huge quagmire. It wouldn't take you all the way to Mallya or Modi because you have shell companies that have their base in offshore tax havens. We studied the movement of money in these chains that you could legally use in the UK. You could open companies in the British Virgin Islands, for instance, and use those companies to buy property in the UK. This isn’t an illegal channel but it hides a lot of details of where these funds come from or who they belong to. There are also trusts that pop up overnight that do not directly link with Mallya or Nirav Modi or [bookie] Sanjay Chawla or [arms dealer] Sanjay Bhandari. So even though now Mallya is bankrupt and his assets can be seized and liquidated by Indian banks, it will be really interesting to see if any of these properties even manage to be on that list. Although they are his properties, it would still be really difficult, if not impossible, to pin them to him.

How do you see this story developing in the future?

Ruhi: The book is a historical perspective to extradition with a lot of cases that have concluded, but our research has not ended. Some of the cases are ongoing and extradition is evolving. We are looking at the changes in trends. Julian Assange’s is an interesting case that we are following to see how the mental health issue plays out which might have implications or lessons for Nirav Modi's lawyers to pick up from. This is just the start of our curiosity to figure out where extradition is heading next.

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