RCN AGAINST NIRAV MODI’S SISTER

NEW DELHI: Interpol has issued a red corner notice (RCN) against Purvi Modi, a Belgian national and absconding billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi’s sister, in connection with the alleged USD 2 billion PNB money laundering case, officials said Monday.

The notice, which acts as an international arrest warrant, states that Purvi Deepak Modi, 44, is required on charges of “money laundering”.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED), the central agency probing the case along with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), has charged Purvi Modi with playing “a major role in laundering the proceeds of crime generated from the PNB scam and being a beneficiary of the scam to the tune of at least USD 133 million (over Rs 950 crore)”.

“She is also the owner/director of several shell or investment companies formed solely for the purpose to launder the proceeds of crime in companies located in the UAE, British Virgin Islands and Singapore,” the agency said in its probe report.

The ED wants her to join investigations to take the probe in the case forward and had sought a global warrant against her as she did not comply with summons issued in this context, officials said.

The agency named her in the first charge sheet filed in the case before a Mumbai court in May and charged her with laundering the alleged proceeds of crime generated by defrauding the Brady House branch of the Punjab National Bank in Mumbai.

The ED had alleged the overseas companies linked to her, a number of them dubious or bogus, were “formed and managed in a very complex manner to camouflage the criminal origin of funds in these companies”.