India suspends passport of jeweller who conned bank
new delhi — India said on Friday it had suspended the passports of a billionaire jeweller and a diamond merchant accused of defrauding a staterun bank after reports they had left the country.
India’s financial crimes agency is investigating allegations that Nirav Modi and his business partner Mehul Choksi were involved in defrauding the Punjab National Bank. Authorities have registered a money laundering case against Modi, one of India’s richest men and jeweller to top Hollywood stars including Kate Winslet and Naomi Watts.
Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said their passports had been suspended for four weeks and would be revoked if they did not provide a response.
“If they fail to respond within the stipulated time it will be assumed that they have no response to offer and the MEA (foreign ministry) will go ahead with the revocation,” Kumar said in a statement.
new delhi — The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has approached the Interpol to locate billionaire jewellery designer Nirav Modi and his family who had left the country in the first week of January, weeks before scam was reported to the agency, officials said.
Officials said the CBI approached the Interpol with a request for issuing Diffusion Notice which was aimed at locating an individual.
“This (diffusion) is less formal than a notice but is also used to request the arrest or location of an individual or additional information in relation to a police investigation. A diffusion is circulated directly by an NCB (CBI in this case) to the member countries of their choice, or to the entire Interpol membership and is simultaneously recorded in Interpol’s Information System,” the website of Interpol says.
The CBI was confident about getting a location of Modi and his family by Friday, they said.
Modi, who was alleged to have carried out fraudulent transactions worth over Rs114 billion in Punjab National Bank, had left the country in the first week of January.
The 46-year old, who holds an Indian passport, left India on January 1, while his brother Nishal, a Belgian citizen, departed from the country on same day. However, whether they travelled together has to be probed, they said.
Modi’s wife Ami, a US citizen, left on January 6 and his uncle and business partner Mehul Choksi, the promoter of Gitanjali jewellery chain, left on January 4, the officials said.
The billionaire diamond merchant, a regular on the lists of rich and famous Indians since 2013, was booked by the CBI, along with wife, brother and Choksi on January 31, for allegedly cheating the state-run Punjab National Bank to the tune of Rs2.8 billion.
The bank again approached the CBI within a fortnight of the first complaint giving details of more transactions which were over Rs114 billion.
The question as to why the PNB did not send a complaint to the CBI and decided to give it in tranches is also under the scanner of the agency, they said.