US-accused Edwin Harmendra Kumar kept in Aussie jail since 2021

A man wanted in the US to face racketeering charges has spent 19 months in jail in Australia ­despite facing no local charges, as his extradition application drags on.

Edwin Harmendra Kumar.

A man wanted in the US to face racketeering charges has spent 19 months in jail in Australia ­despite facing no local charges, as his extradition application drags on.

Sydney man Edwin Harmendra Kumar was arrested and remanded in custody on June 7, 2021, after a global sting by the Australian Federal Police and the FBI using the trojan horse encrypted app AN0M.

In November 2021, the 35-year-old agreed to be surrendered to the US to face a racketeering conspiracy charge, which if proven, could land him a 20-year stretch in a US jail.

But his case has still not been ­finalised, after Mr Kumar asked Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus not to extradite him, despite ­earlier agreeing to the surrender application.

Negotiations between his legal team, Australia’s Attorney-­General’s Department, and US authorities about his likely conditions in US custody have led to his case continuing into 2023.

Mr Kumar, also known as Edwin Harmendra Valentine, has been held in custody since his arrest, including long stretches in solitary, and has been denied bail by the courts. He is currently in Parklea prison in Sydney.

“Mr Kumar has been in prison in Australia for some 19 months, in very difficult circumstances waiting to learn whether he will be extradited to the United States,’’ his lawyer Sarah Khan told The Australian.

“He is an Australian citizen and has never been to the US, apart from a short holiday with his family when he was a young child.

“The US extradition request is based on alleged crimes committed in Sydney, Australia. It is inappropriate that Mr Kumar should be taken to the US to face trial in the circumstances.’’

Ms Khan said it was “noteworthy that (to our knowledge) no US citizen has been charged in the US for these or other AN0M-related offences”.

“On legal advice, Mr Kumar has conceded that he is eligible for surrender to the US under the Extradition Act 1988,” she said.

“But it remains a matter for the discretion of the commonwealth Attorney-General whether he will be surrendered. Mr Kumar has asked the Attorney-General in January 2022 to exercise this discretion to allow him to stay in Australia despite the US request.’’

Ms Khan said that Mr Kumar’s family were “very concerned about his situation and it is hoped that there will be a decision soon”.

A spokesperson for the Attorney-General’s Department said Mr Kumar had been arrested in response to the US’s provisional arrest request on June 7, 2021.’

Former attorney-general Michaelia Cash formally accepted the US’s extradition request for him on July 27, 2021.

Mr Kumar then consented to his extradition in November 2021, a matter that was noted before a magistrate at Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney.

The department said the next formal step in the process was for Mr Dreyfus to make a “surrender determination’’ in relation to Mr Kumar.

That decision has not yet been made.

“It would not be appropriate to comment on the specifics of Mr Kumar’s circumstances due to privacy and confidentiality obligations,’’ the spokesperson said.

“However, as a matter of standard extradition practice, to comply with procedural fairness obligations, even if a person consents to their surrender, the Attorney-General’s Department provides the person with an opportunity to make submissions regarding their surrender.

“It may then become necessary to seek views on those submissions from the relevant country, and if necessary, to give the person concerned a further opportunity to respond.

“This can take some time to complete.’’

Mr Kumar’s father, Bob, told The Australian that authorities “haven’t got anything” on his son, and he was hopeful the matter would progress this year.

“It’s very hard to predict what’s going to happen, but the way things are, we can’t do much,” Bob Kumar said.

“Just because he knows people, some of them (the co-accused) were his schoolmates; they went to the same school together.

“All I can say (is) they didn’t find anything.’’

The FBI indictment alleges that 17 men – including seven Australians but no Americans – were “leaders, members and associates of a criminal organisation’’ known as the AN0M Enterprise, whose “members were engaged in acts involving drug-trafficking, money-laundering and obstruction of justice”.

The men have all been charged with 1970s-era anti-mafia RICO offences.

Mr Kumar is charged with one count of conspiracy to engage in a racketeer-influenced and corrupt organisation (RICO conspiracy), in violation of Title 18, United States Code, section 1962 (d).

He is accused of being a distributor of the AN0M devices, with the FBI alleging that “distributors co-ordinate groups of agents of the AN0M Enterprise devices, ­receive payments for ongoing subscription fees (minus personal profit) back to the parent company, and provide second-level technical support. The distributors can also remotely delete and reset devices’’.

The FBI alleges that the purpose of the AN0M Enterprise was to “create, maintain, use and control a method of secure communication to facilitate the importation, exportation and distribution of illegal drugs into Aust-ralia, Asia, Europe and North America, including the United States and Canada, and to launder the proceeds of such drug-trafficking conduct’’.

The indictment further alleges the AN0M Enterprise sought to obstruct law enforcement’s investigations of such activities.