Fugitive Economic Offender

Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018

A person who has left India or refuses to return to India to face criminal prosecution for an economic offence involving ₹100 crore or more, and has been declared a "Fugitive Economic Offender" by a Special Court under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018. Their properties in India and abroad are subject to confiscation and vesting in the Central Government.

In practice, the Fugitive Economic Offender route under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 is reserved for the large defaulter who flees, a person facing prosecution for an economic offence at or above the statutory threshold who leaves India or refuses to return. On a Special Court declaring the person an FEO, the consequences are severe: properties in India and abroad become liable to confiscation and vesting in the Central Government, and the offender can be barred from defending civil claims. For a creditor whose borrower or guarantor has absconded, the declaration is a powerful pressure point that runs alongside PMLA attachment and recovery proceedings. For the individual, the declaration carries reputational and proprietary fallout that is hard to reverse. Counsel on either side must watch how FEO confiscation interacts with a secured creditor's claim over the same assets, since competing claims over confiscated property generate complex priority disputes. Well-advised parties trace asset locations and the prosecution status before invoking or contesting the FEO machinery.