G20 Summit: Shinzo Abe backs Narendra Modi's efforts to press member countries on issue of fugitive economic offenders

Osaka: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday backed his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, who is pressing the G20 members that they should deal with the issue of fugitive economic offenders as part of the powerful grouping’s anti-corruption measures. [caption id=“attachment_6895001” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Narendra Modi with Shinzo Abe on Thursday. Twitter/@narendramodi[/caption] Ahead of the G20 summit on Friday, Modi held wide ranging talks with Abe on the global economy, issues of fugitive economic offenders and disaster management. Briefing reporters on the Modi-Abe meeting, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said, “Prime Minister Abe initially began with the expectations from the G20 meeting, he spoke about the importance of focusing on the global economy, he referred specifically to Prime Minister’s initiative at earlier G20 meetings on the issue of fugitive economic offenders and he said that the G20 should deal with this problem as part of the anti-corruption measures.” The Modi government has initiated steps to extradite economic offenders from countries like the UK. Efforts are on to bring back liquor baron Vijay Mallya and diamond merchant Nirav Modi as well as Mehul Choksi from abroad. Indian investigative agencies are probing Nirav Modi and his uncle Choksi for alleged money laundering and corruption to defraud the Punjab National Bank (PNB) to the tune of over Rs 13,000 crore. The duo has been absconding since the alleged bank fraud, by far the highest in India in terms of value, came to light last year. Mallya is facing fraud and money laundering charges amounting to Rs 9,000 crores.