71 fugitives located abroad in 2024-25, highest in 12 years

As many as 71 fugitives wanted by India were located in a foreign country in 2024-25, the highest in the last 12 years, government data shows.

According to the 2024-25 annual report of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) located 71 people wanted by India in foreign countries, while 27 fugitives returned to India in the last financial year.

The CBI processed and gave comments on more than 22,200 applications for renunciation of Indian citizenship on the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) portal.

‘Ruthless approach needed’

At a CBI conference last year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had underscored the need for a ruthless approach to ensure the extradition of fugitives.

Over the previous decade, the number of fugitives traced to foreign countries ranged between 15 in 2013 and 42 in 2015, before shooting up to 71 last year, according to the DoPT reports of previous years. The number of fugitives annually extradited or deported to India, on the other hand, ranged between 5 and 29, with the highest number recorded in 2023. Since 2020, the data has also included fugitives who “returned to India from abroad/arrested/located in India on the basis of LoC (Look Out Circulars).”

Extradition requests

According to a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) reply in Parliament on December 19, 2025, India has signed extradition treaties with 48 countries and has extradition arrangements with 12 countries. India is also party to multilateral conventions such as the United Nations Convention against Corruption, which can serve as a legal framework to bring back fugitive criminals from other countries which are also parties to these conventions.

Over the last five years, India has sent 137 extradition requests to foreign countries, the MEA said. Of these, 134 requests were accepted, with 125 of them still pending with foreign governments. Three requests were rejected.

“In the last five years, 25 fugitives have been successfully extradited to India,” the MEA added.

533 pending requests

The CBI’s Global Operations Centre geo-locates wanted criminals and fugitives in cooperation with foreign law enforcement agencies, via Interpol channels and through the issue of Interpol notices.

“On ascertaining location of wanted subjects, CBI coordinates with concerned law enforcement agencies, INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB) of concerned countries, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs, for return of wanted subject from abroad,” the report said.

During 2024-2025, there were 74 judicial requests, called letters rogatory, sent to foreign governments. Of these, 54 pertain to CBI cases and 20 pertain to State and Central law enforcement agencies. There were 47 letters rogatory which were fully executed during 2024-2025, of which 42 were from the CBI and five were from other agencies.

As on March 31, 2025, a total of 533 letters rogatory were pending with other countries, of which 276 pertain to CBI cases and 257 pertain to State police and other Central law enforcement agencies.