In what it termed a ‘major breakthrough’, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday took into custody Monika Kapoor, an economic offender extradited from the US. Kapoor was brought back to India on an American Airlines flight and will stand trial in a Rs. 1.44 crore gold import fraud case.
Kapoor had been fugitive since 1999. The case against her entails charges of falsifying export documents and selling import licenses illegally. A case was formally registered once she went missing, and this resulted in a long CBI probe.
Why Monika Kapoor Went into Hiding?
Monika Kapoor is the owner of a Delhi company, M/s Monika Overseas. She, along with her brothers Rajan Khanna and Rajeev Khanna, had allegedly prepared fake documents related to jewellery exports such as shipping bills, invoices, and bank certificates, CBI said.
These forged documents were utilized to procure six Replenishment Licences, duty-free import licences intended to assist exporters in restocking raw materials consumed in the process of manufacturing export goods.
Kapoor further reportedly sold these licences at a premium to Deep Exports, an Ahmedabad company. This enabled the company to import gold duty-free, causing a loss of approximately Rs. 1.44 crore (approximately $679,000) to the government exchequer.
Her brothers had been convicted in 2017, and the CBI had been chasing Monika Kapoor since 2002 when it initiated the case officially.
Long Wait for Extradition Ends
The CBI brought a charge sheet against Kapoor and her brothers in 2004 accusing them of criminal conspiracy, cheating, and forgery. Kapoor was then made a proclaimed offender on February 13, 2006.
According to the India-US extradition treaty, a district court in New York sanctioned her extradition in 2012, two years after the CBI made a formal request for her extradition. Even though Kapoor appealed several times in US courts, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit confirmed her extradition in March 2025.
After three months since then, Kapoor has finally been brought back to India to be brought to justice.
