Indian national Nikhil Gupta on Friday pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to charges stemming from a failed murder-for-hire plot targeting Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York City.

Gupta, 54, pleaded guilty to charges of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering, in connection with his efforts to murder Pannun, who holds dual American and Canadian citizenship.

He entered his plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan federal court and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 29 by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero. Under recommended federal sentencing guidelines, Gupta could face about 20 to 24 years in prison.

According to statements made during the plea hearing, Gupta admitted his role in the plot. "I agreed with another person to have another individual to murder (sic) a person in United States," and paid someone in New York $15,000 to commit the crime, Gupta said, according to a transcript of his plea hearing.

U.S. prosecutors alleged that Gupta worked with others in India and elsewhere, including co-defendant Vikash Yadav, to orchestrate Pannun’s assassination on American soil. Authorities said Yadav, described in court papers as an employee of India’s Cabinet Secretariat, which houses the country’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing, recruited Gupta in May 2023.

At Yadav’s direction, Gupta contacted an individual he believed to be a criminal associate to help arrange the killing. That individual was, in fact, a confidential source working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Prosecutors said Yadav subsequently agreed, in dealings brokered by Gupta, to pay the undercover officer USD 100,000 to murder the victim.

On or about June 9, 2023, Yadav and Gupta arranged for an associate to deliver USD 15,000 in cash to the undercover officer as an advance payment for the murder.

Yadav faces the same criminal charges as Gupta but is not in U.S. custody. It is unclear whether he has hired a defense lawyer.

“Nikhil Gupta plotted to assassinate a U.S. citizen in New York City,” the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, said in a statement. "He thought that from outside this country he could kill someone in it without consequence, simply for exercising their American right to free speech. But he was wrong."

Gupta has been jailed in Brooklyn since initially pleading not guilty in June 2024 following his extradition from the Czech Republic, where he had been arrested a year earlier. Lawyers for Gupta did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Indian embassy in Washington, D.C., also did not immediately respond to separate requests for comment.

India’s government has dissociated itself from any plot against Pannun, saying it was against government policy. The discovery of alleged assassination plots against Sikh separatists in the United States and Canada has strained diplomatic ties, though New Delhi has denied involvement in such plots.