Afzal “Bobby” Khan, who has been on the run from fraud charges for the past five years, has requested to return to the United States from an undisclosed location for conditional surrender.
Khan was charged in 2014 with running a fraudulent car dealership where he is accused of taking large loans out for clients and failing to deliver on the car they thought they purchased. In his time as the head of Emporio Auto Group in Ramsey, New Jersey, Khan is suspected of defrauding customers with falsified financial transactions and misleading sales agreements.
Khan was indicted by a grand jury in 2015 for taking $1.7 million from one bank through false transactions with two dozen customers, but authorities later identified at least 75 more customers that had been swindled by Khan.
As a fugitive, Khan is currently on the Most Wanted list of the FBI and faces up to 100 years in prison if apprehended. The FBI has also offered up to $20,000 for information leading to his capture.
Speaking from an undisclosed location that does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S., Khan told Fox News that he has attempted for years to communicate with the New Jersey Attorney’s Office and the FBI to negotiate favorable terms of surrender so he can bring his family back the U.S.
“What more do I have to do?” he said. “I’m basically practically begging you. I’m a fugitive from justice saying, ‘Arrest me.'” Khan also said that he originally fled the country with his wife and young children to hide from the death threats of angry clients but has been attempting to come clean with law enforcement since he learned of the charges against him.
“I’m not pleading guilt, I’m not pleading innocence,” said Khan. “The point is I need to get my wife and kids home so I can stand trial.” Khan reportedly sent an open letter in 2016 to the New Jersey U.S. attorney requesting that his family be transported home by military aircraft to avoid a $60,000 fine that they face for overstaying their visas. He also asked that charges against his brother be dropped. Khan also claimed that his children had not been to school or had a doctor visit since fleeing in 2014.
“It is beyond difficult constantly looking over your shoulder,” Khan’s wife Stephanie said to Fox News. “Being a mother and having children and them not being able to go to school like they would if we were back home is very difficult.”
New Jersey Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Mack dismissed Khan’s attempts to negotiate. “He has created this issue. He has created this quagmire. And now he’s looking for the Department of Justice to fix that for him. And I think that’s where the difficulty in this and this issue is,” said Mack. “I think it’d be tough to have a lot of sympathy for someone that has created that situation for his family.”
Victims of Khan’s alleged fraud were also not sympathetic to his situation. Former client Gary Bernstein, who claimed to have lost upward of $1 million in a fraudulent deal with Khan, rebuked the disgraced car mogul’s request for favorable terms. “The amount of people he hurt, what he caused … he deserves whatever the punishment might be,” Bernstein said.
