Manjit Singh Bedi, a Tacoma grocery store owner who federal prosecutors say fled to India while awaiting trial on food stamp fraud charges, is back in the United States, and the Justice Department intends to ask a judge to keep him in custody until trial.
Bedi, 64, of Kent, Washington, was turned over to federal agents and arrived in the Western District of Washington on the night of Oct. 14, according to a Justice Department announcement described by the Kent Reporter. He was due in federal court in Tacoma on Friday, IANS reported.
The Press Trust of India, in a report carried by India Today, called the handover an extradition. IANS reported that U.S. officials had not said whether India extradited Bedi or deported him.
FBI Director Kash Patel announced the return on Thursday, calling it "yet another significant moment" for the bureau's Most Wanted Fraudsters program. He said Bedi was one of six people captured since the list was created three months ago, Fox News reported.
"We will ask the court to detain him pending trial as he has demonstrated he has the will and the means to flee," Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd said in a statement quoted by IANS. "Those who take advantage of America's generosity must be held accountable."
The case centers on The Asian Grocery Store, a small shop in Tacoma that was authorized to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits in February 2024. Starting the following month, the indictment alleges, Bedi gave SNAP recipients cash for the money on their electronic benefit cards at 50 cents on the dollar. In the example prosecutors gave, he would charge $200 to a recipient's card, hand over $100 in cash and keep the other $100. Prosecutors say that by June 2025, when the fraud was discovered, he had pocketed at least $600,000 in benefits for food that was never sold, according to the Kent Reporter's account of the charges.
Bedi is charged with wire fraud and SNAP benefit fraud, each punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He pleaded not guilty on April 22, and the charges remain allegations.
Prosecutors point to what happened next. Bedi had been allowed to appear in court without being arrested, on the condition that he surrender his passport and stay in Washington, but he drove across the border into Canada and then went on to India, the FBI said, according to the Press Trust of India. The Justice Department said he was gone within a week of his plea. A federal warrant charging him with violating the terms of his release followed on May 21, Fox News reported.
The FBI put Bedi on its Most Wanted Fraudsters list on Sept. 3, a step that spread his photograph and case details internationally, the Justice Department said, and it offered a reward of up to $150,000 for information leading to his arrest and conviction. Law enforcement in India took him into custody soon afterward. Patel wrote that the arrest came in September.
W. Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle field office, credited the bureau's investigators, its foreign partners and "tips from the public about the subject's whereabouts" for returning Bedi "to face justice in a Tacoma courtroom," the PTI report said.
Patel tied the case to a broader effort to bring wanted suspects back from overseas. He said the FBI had logged more than 260 extraditions and removals in 20 months, which he described as roughly a 70% increase over the previous period, and he thanked partners in the United States and India, according to his statement.
The investigation was handled by the Agriculture Department's Office of Inspector General, the FBI and the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, according to the Kent Reporter.