British businessman jailed after ‘taking phone to Himalayan yoga retreat’

Oil executive spent one week in jail

The oil exec was arrested after using the banned phone at a yoga retreat (AFP via Getty Images)

A British oil executive was jailed in India after bringing a banned satellite phone to a yoga retreat.

Fergus MacLeod, who works for the oil giant Saudi Aramco, says he spent a week locked up in an Indian jail after taking the phone on the retreat in the Himalayas.

Mr MacLeod said he had been unaware of the ban, which was introduced after such devices were used by terrorists who attacked Mumbai in 2008.

The 62-year-old told the Financial Times he was arrested at his hotel in the Valley of Flowers national park in Uttarakhand state and taken to prison where he was held “in a communal cell with long-term prisoners who had committed very serious crimes”.

Anyone not from India needs to ask permission from the government to use the special type of phone which uses satellites to pick up signals rather than terrestrial towers.

Mr MacLeod was arrested on 12 July and was detained in prison in the town Chamoli until 18 July. The executive, who had been on holiday with friends, including some colleagues from Saudi Aramco, said he was treated well throughout the ordeal.

Police told The Times of India it had “received information about a foreigner using [a] banned satellite phone inside Valley of Flowers”. He said that police had searched for Mr MacLeod and found him a day later.

They questioned him about the use of the device and then confiscated it before sending him to “judicial custody”.

He had turned on and off the satellite phone in his hotel room but claimed he did not use it. Authorities were then able to pick up the phone's coordinates before arresting him.

Fergus MacLeod bought the phone for emergencies in remote areas (Screengrab)

Mr MacLeod, who has led investor relations at the oil giant since 2017, said he had been unaware of the ban.

“It was a frightening place and a highly traumatic experience,” Mr MacLeod said.

While in the prison, he tried to get in contact on a foreign office helpline, adding that while the government department was “sympathetic” no “meaningful action” had been taken.

Mr MacLeod told the FT that he had bought the satellite phone in Britain in 2017 and usually used it when travelling in remote parts of Saudi Arabia in case of an emergency in an area with poor mobile signal.

The oil executive was eventually released after his friends paid his bail. Despite this, he couldn’t leave the country until after a court hearing at the end of the month on 27 July where he pleaded guilty and settled the fine of just £10 ($12), or Rs1,000.

MacLeod, an Oxford graduate, previously worked in a number of financial and energy sector roles including at Deutsche Bank, as an investment analyst covering the oil and gas industry, and more than a decade at BP, the British oil giant, where he was head of investor relations and later head of group strategy before leaving in 2013. He and his wife own a £3.5 million property in Hertfordshire.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: “We provided consular support to a British man in India.”