A London judge ruled on 19 August 2026 that Manpreet Kohli, 45, an Indian national and UK-based CEO of UK-registered crypto company Saitama LLC, can be extradited to the United States to face federal fraud and market manipulation charges. The ruling clears the case for ministerial approval, the final procedural step before Kohli could be handed over to US authorities to stand trial in Boston.

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Kohli was arrested in London on 7 October 2024 as part of Operation Token Mirrors, a major DOJ enforcement action out of the District of Massachusetts that resulted in charges against 18 individuals and entities and the seizure of more than $25 million in cryptocurrency. US prosecutors allege that Kohli and co-conspirators used Saitama's native token, traded on the Ethereum blockchain, to run a coordinated pump-and-dump scheme (a practice in which insiders artificially inflate a token's price through misleading promotion and then quietly sell their holdings for profit). The indictment includes wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, market manipulation, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

District Judge Samuel Goozee rejected Kohli's challenge on human rights and prison conditions grounds, stating: "I find there are clearly appropriate arrangements in place both during transit and within the prison system in the U.S." Kohli remains free on £200,000 bail (roughly $272,420) and retains the right to appeal the ruling before any transfer takes place.

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A Token That Peaked at $7.5 Billion

Saitama Inu launched on Ethereum on 30 May 2021, positioning itself alongside a wave of meme coins that followed Dogecoin's viral rise. By November 2021, the token had reached a reported market capitalisation above $7.5 billion. According to DOJ filings, SEC complaint LR-26155, and on-chain analysis by TRM Labs, that valuation was built substantially on manufactured activity.

Prosecutors allege that Kohli and co-defendants Russell Armand, Maxwell Hernandez, and Nam Tran publicly claimed to be buying and holding the token while privately selling. Internal Telegram messages cited in court documents allegedly show team members coordinating artificial price activity among themselves. Separately, the defendants made public assurances to the market that they were holding their positions in the token.

The alleged personal profits to insiders total approximately $20 million.

Saitama also reportedly contracted market-making firms, including Gotbit and ZM Quant, among others, to generate wash trading: the practice of buying and selling the same asset between affiliated accounts to create the appearance of genuine market interest.

Five Saitama employees have already pleaded guilty. MyTrade founder Liu Zhou also agreed to plead guilty in the broader case. Gotbit CEO Aleksei Andriunin was separately apprehended in Portugal.

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A Broader Federal Sting

Operation Token Mirrors was notable for the tactics used. The FBI built a functioning Ethereum-based token called NexFundAI and offered it to market-making firms as bait, gathering real-time evidence of criminal wash trading in action. The operation generated roughly 52 ETH (approximately $127,000 at the time) within 24 hours of launch. Prosecutors described the operation as the first time criminal charges had been brought against financial services firms specifically for market manipulation and wash trading in crypto. Acting US Attorney Joshua Levy characterised the broader wave of cases underlying Operation Token Mirrors as "a 'pump and dump' scheme, which is as old as the stock markets."

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Regional Exposure: South Asia Caught at the Peak

The case carries a specific sting for retail investors in South Asia. In November 2021, at or near the token's all-time high, Saitama was listed on Giottus, a prominent Indian crypto exchange. Saitama-branded Telegram and WhatsApp communities had been active across India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan throughout that cycle. Investors who bought in around that period and held through the token's subsequent collapse and two contract migrations would have seen near-total losses.

The case also extends a visible pattern in US crypto enforcement involving Indian nationals. In September and October 2025, four Indian nationals, Manu Singh, Kushagra Srivastava, Vasu Sharma, and Sabby Singh, were charged and extradited from Singapore on separate crypto pump-and-dump charges.

Kohli's case adds a UK corridor to that pattern, and follows the same logic as the March 2026 UK High Court decision rejecting Nirav Modi's bid to reopen his own extradition case. Modi faces Punjab National Bank fraud charges and has not been convicted by a UK court. British courts have shown little appetite for humanitarian exemptions in financial crime matters.

India's domestic regulatory framework is still catching up. The country registered 49 crypto exchanges with its Financial Intelligence Unit in 2025 and issued roughly $3.1 million in fines, but it lacks legislation specifically targeting token manipulation. The Finance Bill 2026 added daily penalties of ₹200 for non-reporting, and SEBI has begun scrutinising altcoin offerings more closely. Schemes built on foreign blockchains with no formal Indian nexus remain difficult to pursue domestically. A June 2026 Enforcement Directorate action against six Bengaluru crypto payment firms proceeded under the Foreign Exchange Management Act rather than the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, illustrating the patchwork of statutes regulators must navigate when pursuing crypto-related misconduct.

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What Comes Next

The case now passes to British ministers for a formal extradition order, a step that is typically procedural but can be delayed by a successful appeal. If extradited, Kohli will face trial in Boston federal court, where his earlier attempt to have the indictment dismissed on the grounds that Saitama tokens are not legally classified as securities was already rejected by the presiding judge.