Highlights
- Vadodara-based Sterling Biotech, its directors Nitin, Chetan and Dipti Sandesara booked by ED and CBI for Rs 5,000 CR bank fraud
- It is alleged that the Sandesaras set up more than 300 shell and benami companies in India and abroad
- Family suspected to be in Nigeria, a country that does not have extradition treaty with India

A month after reports suggested that Nitin Sandesara, owner of
Gujarat-based Sterling Biotech
+ and wanted by the CBI and the ED in a Rs 5,000 crore bank fraud, was
detained in Dubai
+ , it has now emerged that he is not in the UAE and could have fled to Nigeria.

According to top sources in the two agencies, Sandesara and other family members including brother Chetan Sandesara and sister-in-law Diptiben Sandesara were believed to be hiding in Nigeria. India doesn’t not have an extradition treaty or a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Nigeria and bringing them back from the African country would be difficult, sources said.
An officer, who didn’t wish to be named, said, “There were reports that Nitin Sandesara was detained by UAE authorities in Dubai in the second week of August. It was incorrect information. He was never detained in Dubai. He and other family members probably left for Nigeria much before that.”
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The CBI and the ED have booked Vadodara-based Sterling Biotech + , its directors Nitin, Chetan and Dipti Sandesara, Rajbhushan Omprakash Dixit, Vilas Joshi, chartered accountant Hemant Hathi, former Andhra Bank director Anup Garg and unidentified persons for cheating banks of Rs 5,000 crore.