New Delhi: US prosecutors have alleged in court that former Indian R&AW officer Vikash Yadav promised to supply firearms and even arrange clearance for an aircraft to move weapons from India, so that Nikhil Gupta could sell them to a man he believed was a trafficker and who, in return, would help him hire a hitman to target a Sikh separatist in New York.

The allegation appears in a filing by the US government on September 22 in a federal court in New York. The document, viewed by The Wire, is a “motion in limine”, a type of pre-trial request where lawyers ask the judge to decide, before the trial begins, what evidence can or cannot be shown to jurors. Gupta, 52, is scheduled to face trial on November 3 on charges of conspiring to arrange the killing of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US-Canadian citizen and general counsel of the group Sikhs for Justice, banned by India.

US prosecutors first charged Gupta in November 2023 with plotting to kill Pannun, alleging he acted on the orders of an Indian government official identified only as “CC-1.”

Three weeks later, on December 18, Delhi Police’s Special Cell arrested Yadav in an unrelated kidnapping and extortion case. He spent four months in Tihar Jail before being granted bail in April 2024, and his whereabouts since then are unclear.

In October 2024, US authorities unsealed a second superseding indictment naming “CC-1” as Vikash Yadav, describing him as an official with the Cabinet Secretariat under the Prime Minister’s Office. In January this year, a high-level committee of the Indian government indirectly acknowledged his role by recommending “legal action”.

According to the latest motion of the prosecutors, Gupta had been cultivating a relationship with a man he believed to be a narcotics trafficker. In reality, the man was secretly working with US law enforcement. 

“Throughout the charged conspiracy period, even as they discussed the murder-for-hire of the Victim, Gupta and the CS (Confidential Source) also negotiated a drug and weapons deal. Gupta flew to Prague, where he was arrested, in part to meet the CS and finalize this deal,” the prosecutors stated.

He reportedly went to Yadav to get supply of the weapons that Gupta then intended to exchange for drugs.

'Support was conditional on assassination'

In WhatsApp messages on June 22, 2023, Yadav allegedly promised to provide “assault rifles and pistols” and even to “arrange for the clearance of an airplane to transport the weapons from India.” 

On June 26, Gupta followed up, asking Yadav to check on the “toys”, allegedly a coded reference to firearms. Prosecutors say Yadav again responded that he would be able to obtain the weapons once the killing was complete.

The US prosecutors argued that these exchanges show Yadav’s alleged support was conditional on Pannun’s assassination, making the arms offer directly tied to the murder-for-hire plot.

Prosecutors had already claimed in previous unsealed indictments that Gupta and Yadav were not only focused on the New York plot but had also spoken of other potential killings. In the latest filing, they stated that there was at least one more target in California and another in the Indian subcontinent.

A 'strikingly similar' Nepal plot

“Beginning in May 2023, when Yadav instructed Gupta to ‘[s]ave my name as Aman,’ Yadav told Gupta over WhatsApp that there were multiple ‘targets,’ including one in New York (the Victim) and another in California, and by reference to addresses, at least one target in Nepal or Pakistan,” said the prosecutor’s letter to the judge.

In relation to the Nepal discussions, the government said Yadav provided Gupta with the target’s location to pass on to hitmen, whom Gupta described as “soldiers.” On May 8, Gupta wrote to Yadav that the men had “already arrived [in Nepal] and looking for” the target. Yadav pressed Gupta to increase their payment and told him the task was “urgent.” In one message, Yadav instructed: “if they have really captured the target.. they should kill him. Else we won’t get another chance.”

Prosecutors argued that “Yadav and Gupta’s communications about the Nepal task were substantially similar to their communications about the New York task,” and even described the Nepal plot as “strikingly similar” to the Pannun plan.

The filing goes on to describe what it says is Gupta’s long history of drug and arms trafficking. Prosecutors allege he first discussed heroin and weapons with the government’s Confidential Source whom he first knew from 2013. 

In 2017, they say, Gupta asked the CS to arrange couriers to collect $25,000 in Cuba, telling him he had earlier flown there and smuggled out an undeclared amount of $10,000. He later claimed his “primary business” was moving money, boasting that he had smuggled $20 million worth of credit cards from Cuba to Los Angeles by taping them to his ankles, and that he had moved $50 million from Ecuador to Panama. In other messages, he asked for help in arranging a $30,000-40,000 payment in Romania.

Gmail and other records

A key disclosure came from Google in response to a search warrant issued in October 2023, which produced subscriber records, access logs, recovery contacts and service usage details for two Gmail accounts – onlybutt095@gmail.com and vikas0yadav@gmail.com. Those records show that both accounts were accessed from the same Indian IP addresses. The first was linked to a phone number used under the alias “Amanat” in WhatsApp chats with Gupta, while the second was subscribed in Yadav’s name.

The content of those accounts, prosecutors say, includes material that identifies Yadav. Emails from 2016 carried photographs of a man in uniform wearing a “Vikas Yadav” name tag, and another showed him standing in front of an aircraft with the word “INDIAN” clearly visible. Other emails attached scans of a passport in the name of “Vikash Yadav.” A 2012 message contained a recruitment circular inviting Assistant Commandants to apply for direct entry into the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), describing the position as part of the Cabinet Secretariat.

The account also contained a June 2017 message signed “Vikash Yadav,” attaching a scanned voters I-card as residence proof, a photograph, and two Cabinet Secretariat pay slips. More recent emails in 2022 and 2023 involved income tax returns. One email sent from ‘onlybutt095@gmail.com’ in July 2023 was a forward of a Form 16 tax certificate, with the address of the employer written as the 'Cabinet Secretariat.'

The government also filed a Czech police record from June 2023, documenting Gupta’s surrender of two iPhones and a Samsung handset when he was detained at Prague airport. Prosecutors argue that because Gupta signed the record, it should be treated as an adoptive admission and used against him at trial.

Separately, prosecutors said a March 2023 email from the ‘onlybutt095’ account titled “Photo from Amanat” attached images of a credit card and website, which they argue helps link Gupta’s alias “Amanat” to the account.

The government also filed a Czech police record from June 2023, documenting Gupta’s surrender of two iPhones and a Samsung handset when he was detained at Prague airport. Prosecutors say that because Gupta signed the record, it should be treated as an adoptive admission – effectively an acknowledgement that the phones were his – and used against him at trial.

The motion further asks for protective measures for the undercover operative and the informant, including allowing them to testify under pseudonyms and restricting public access, citing safety concerns.

Gupta's defence

Gupta’s lawyers have pushed back with their own motion, urging the judge to exclude much of this material. They argue that tax returns, Cabinet Secretariat pay slips and the RAW recruitment notice are irrelevant to whether Gupta agreed to a murder plot, and risk prejudicing jurors by suggesting Indian intelligence was behind the scheme without direct proof.

The defence has also opposed the government’s plan to call UK-based academic Nitasha Kaul as an expert witness on Indian politics and intelligence, saying her testimony is political commentary rather than independent expertise. They objected as well to a proposed video of slain Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, arguing it would inflame the jury without bearing on Gupta’s actions.

Separately, they questioned the admissibility of the Czech phone surrender record, saying US authorities did not follow proper procedures under the mutual legal assistance treaty with Prague.

Gupta’s defence has already suffered several setbacks in earlier hearings. On September 17, Judge Victor Marrero ruled that US prosecutors could withhold certain classified documents under the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA). The judge accepted the government’s argument that disclosure would pose a “reasonable danger” to national security and said Gupta already had access to equivalent unclassified information.

On August 26, the same judge rejected Gupta’s bid to obtain communications between the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Czech police about his arrest in Prague. Defence lawyers had argued that DEA attachés in Europe were “active participants” in the arrest, but the court found they had played only a logistical role, not one that created discoverable records.

Earlier this year, Gupta’s lawyer tried to dismiss a money-laundering charge that was added in a superseding indictment, contending that it had not been part of the charges approved when he was extradited from Prague. The court allowed the charge to stand. Defence motions also challenged the admissibility of evidence from Gupta’s phones, arguing that US and Czech authorities acted jointly without properly advising him of his rights, an argument the judge did not accept.

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