The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently issued a wanted notice for Indian citizen Vikash Yadav over a plot to kill a US-based person of Indian origin. This is the first such counterintelligence charge against an Indian national in a decade. The FBI website shows that between 2012 and 2024, most such charges involved individuals from China (25) and Russia (22) out of 66 fugitives.

The FBI’s most wanted ‘counterintelligence charges’ refer to any foreign activities including espionage, sabotage, assassination and spying activity conducted on US soil that could threaten its national security.

According to data from the FBI’s website, 33 individuals have been charged with espionage and related crimes under the Biden administration (2021–2024), followed by 22 under Trump (2017–2021) and 11 under Obama (2012–2017). Notably, charges for espionage crimes saw a rise during the Covid-19 pandemic, with most cases involving spying for foreign governments, sharing trade secrets, and targeted assassinations.

Tensions between the US and Russia have escalated since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, with Russian operatives facing charges for alleged interference in the 2016 US elections. Similarly, espionage activity in China has surged since 2000, as highlighted by a survey by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Of the 224 reported incidents of Chinese espionage, 69 per cent occurred after Xi Jinping took office.

This year, alongside Vikash Yadav, two additional individuals of unknown nationalities, Samer Rayya and Mohamad Majd Deiry, have also appeared on the espionage list for crimes related to illegal money laundering.

Pannun plot

Vikash Yadav has been accused of assisting Indian national Nikhil Gupta in a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate US-based Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. Gupta was extradited to the US by the Czech Republic under a bilateral treaty.

According to the data from the Rajya Sabha, India maintains a formal extradition treaty with 48 countries, extradition arrangements with 12 others, and 2 countries have yet to be ratified. Between 2002 and 2017, India extradited 47 individuals to 10 nations, with 26 of these extraditions going to the US, followed by Canada and Australia. Conversely, 22 nations extradited 62 individuals to India, with the UAE (18), the US (9), and Canada (4) leading the list.

There are growing pending extradition requests as well. According to reports, India currently has 61 pending extradition requests with the US, 26 with Canada, and 2 with the United Kingdom (UK). In recent years, Indian espionage cases have emerged in countries such as the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Pakistan. However, the Indian government has officially denied any involvement in these spying incidents abroad.

Despite this isolated case, the overall relationship between India and the US remains strong. Both countries have signed several key security and economic agreements, such as the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement in 2018 and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement in 2020. Additionally, India is crucial in countering China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region, further solidifying its strategic importance to the US.

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