New Delhi: Assistant US Attorney Camille Fletcher had just one question for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in Prague: “Is he talking?”
“He did,” replied DEA officer Mark Franks, going on to use a colourful colloquialism for useless conversations: “But he was playing f***-f*** games.”
The ‘Indian narcotics dealer’ they’d just arrested at Prague airport had allegedly tried to mislead officers on the identity of the person who recruited him for a ‘murder-for-hire’ operation, demanded to make a call home, and then refused to answer questions.
But there was one important fact New Delhi resident Nikhil Gupta—now facing trial on murder-for-hire charges relating to an assassination attempt on Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun—didn’t know. The New York Police Department and the DEA had been tracking him for over a decade, recording his calls and messages, court records show.
The date for pre-trial proceedings in the murder-for-hire charges against Gupta is scheduled to be decided today.
“Gupta was introduced to the CS (confidential source), who was posing as an international narcotics trafficker, in or about 2013,” prosecutors have told a New York court. “Gupta told the CS that he was an international narcotics trafficker and money launderer.”
Multiple attempts to reach Gupta’s family seeking a response on specific disclosures made by the US prosecutors yielded no result. ThePrint’s attempts to reach Gupta directly through communication services available to prisoners in the United States, have also yielded no result. ThePrint has deposited $15 in the prison communication service account, which he can use to respond to queries. This report will be updated if and when a response is received through this channel.
Similarly, multiple emails to the team of court-appointed legal counsels seeking a response went unanswered.
DEA agents handling the Pannun investigation, the prosecution records show, were able to identify Gupta through their databases, and use the relationship with the informant to monitor the ‘plot’. Apparently oblivious to the possibility that Gupta’s contacts might be compromised, his alleged Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) handlers communicated their intentions and plans openly, using easily-monitored Gmail and WhatsApp accounts. More on that in Part 2 of this series.
Landing at Václav Havel airport on the evening of 30 June 2023, Nikhil Gupta had sent a text message, sharing his new international-travel number with a friend, a supposed drug dealer in New York he’d known since 2013. The men were to discuss heroin and money laundering deals, American prosecutors have alleged, and also to iron out problems that had emerged in finding a hit-man to kill Pannun.
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Codename: ‘Amanat’
Arrested by Czech authorities, the documents show, Gupta tried to hide his connection with his alleged R&AW handler, Vikash Yadav. Gupta claimed ‘Amanat’, the code name used by Yadav, met him wearing a mask, hat, glasses and long sleeve t-shirts, making him hard to identify.
He also claimed ‘Amanat’ was “tall, possibly in his 40s, and possibly from India and Pakistan”.
“Gupta stated he did not know anything else about Amanat and he would most likely go into hiding once he found out Gupta had been arrested,” the prosecution documents state.
The DEA, however, knew more than Gupta believed. The friend in New York he had been working with was, in fact, a police informant, reporting to an undercover New York Police Department (NYPD) officer. For the past 10 years, as Gupta allegedly plotted international credit card fraud and heroin trafficking schemes, the New York Police had been listening in, patiently waiting to see where he might lead them.
“Even as they discussed the murder-for-hire of the victim, Gupta and the CS also negotiated a drug and weapons deal,” prosecutors allege. “Gupta flew to Prague, where he was arrested, in part to meet the CS and finalize this deal.”
Little detail is available about just how the informant first met Gupta or where, but prosecution documents allege the Delhi import-export business owner introduced himself as “an international narcotics trafficker and money launderer”.
The two men, prosecutors claim, attempted to negotiate narcotics deals on several occasions, once agreeing to a meeting in Sri Lanka to negotiate a heroin shipment to the United States. The planned meeting in Sri Lanka, the prosecution documents claim, never took place.
Four years later, in the summer of 2017, Gupta travelled to the United States, and met with the informant in New York. During the course of the meeting, Gupta is alleged to have claimed that “he had contacts in Afghanistan who could supply the informant’s drug cartel with assault rifles, machine guns, explosives, and other heavy weaponry”.
At one stage, the documents record, Gupta sent the informant photographs of the weapons he could supply.
However, the US authorities did not arrest him at this point, since he did not demonstrate the ability to organise the trafficking of weapons. The arrest in Prague only came when authorities in New York decided they had enough evidence to secure a conviction in court on a murder-for-hire charge.
“To anyone who reads the news,” an Indian intelligence officer noted, “the discussion on weapons should have been a red flag. Mexico’s drug cartels buy a copious supply of weapons from the United States and Latin American sources. They don’t need someone to be shipping them guns from Afghanistan.”
Large-scale imports of weapons, a 2020 United States government study stated, have taken place from the United States, as well as Austria, Argentina, Brazil, China, and Turkey. The cartels are known to be equipped with sophisticated equipment, including armoured vehicles, drones and even submarines.
Through the visit in 2017, the prosecution documents state, Gupta made several calls to the informant, asking if he could help pick up cash from Cuba, and deliver it to New York or London. Gupta allegedly suggested the cash could be brought safely if the informant used several couriers, each of whom carried $7,000-$8,000 each, well below the $10,000 customs limit.
According to prosecutors, “Gupta also stated that in January 2017, he had traveled to Cuba and collected $10,000 without issue and without declaring the funds.”
From the prosecution documents, it appears that Gupta’s main business might have been small-time money-laundering, rather than narcotics or weapons. In one meeting, Gupta is alleged to have told the informant that he had smuggled credit cards with limits running into millions of dollars from Cuba to Los Angeles by taping the cards to his ankles. Gupta also allegedly informed his criminal contact in New York he had moved $50 million from Ecuador to Panama.
Later, prosecutors say, Gupta sent text messages “asking the CS if the CS could help arrange a $30,000 to $40,000 payment in Romania on Gupta’s behalf, and Gupta in turn would make the payment in New York”. Even though none of these conversations led to an actual transaction, Gupta seems to have remained trusting of the informant.
Also Read: R&AW must answer why it tolerates poor tradecraft, recruitment standards, officer oversight
The ‘plot’ to kill Pannun
Gupta’s involvement in the Pannun plot, according to the DEA, began in 2021, likely as a result of these activities. In the course of a visit to Uzbekistan, Gupta told police in the Czech Republic, he was informed that his appearance was required in a court case related to robbery.
There is, interestingly, no record of any First Information Report or criminal investigation against Gupta in India. “Gupta did not understand why (he was sought by police) as he was not in the country,” one court filing states, “but he said this was not unusual as India’s police force is corrupt.”
Yadav was, at this time, engaged in litigation with the Cabinet Secretariat since 2017, when it issued an administrative order claiming his recruitment from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was illegal. With six other officers recruited along with him, Yadav moved the Central Administrative Tribunal. The CAT bench ordered that the officers be reinstated, after the Cabinet Secretariat reversed its earlier position in October 2023, giving Yadav the designation of Special Field Officer with back pay and seniority.
Following the threat of prosecution by police in India, court documents state, Gupta began to ask friends if they knew people who might help him end the case. This process, according to Gupta’s purported testimony to Czech police, led to a phone call from Vikash Yadav, allegedly saying he could make the case disappear in return for help finding a hit-man in New York.
As Yadav and Gupta began their purported conversations on the ‘plot’ to kill Pannun, the DEA was able to access their conversations.
Filings made to a grand jury state that the DEA listened in as Gupta communicated with the informant (or CS) “over phone, video and chat in anticipation of completing the murder-for-hire”.
“During video calls, Gupta’s face has been fully visible, and law enforcement agents have been able to compare the person on the call with the picture on a law enforcement database,” the filings further state.
For his part, Vikash Yadav was identified as an employee of the R&AW, after the DEA obtained a warrant to search Gmail accounts linked to the phone number he used to communicate with Gupta.
The Gmail account, prosecutors allege, was linked to a second Gmail account, where Yadav had stored his payslips, tax returns, employment-related information and other confidential data.
This carelessly maintained trove of data, a violation of basic operational security procedures, allowed the Drug Enforcement Administration to rapidly develop a profile of Yadav, and his ties to R&AW. This material is now critical evidence in a case that could strain India-US ties for months to come.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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