New Delhi : Widening its probe, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has zeroed in on foreign assets worth about Rs 4,000 crore of absconding diamond jeweller Nirav Modi for quick attachment under the anti-money laundering law in connection with the alleged $2 billion PNB fraud case.
Officials said the agency has got issued a number of judicial requests (Letters Rogatories), and with a few being in the pipeline, from a local court in Mumbai to be sent to countries like the US, UK, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore for attachment of immovable properties likes houses and villas and bank accounts of Nirav Modi and his family.
The agency, they said, had deployed a special team of officers to find out these assets located in the foreign shores and after getting official inputs, it has now begun the action to attach them under the criminal provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) soon, with help from foreign authorities.
The estimated value of these about two dozen assets is approximately Rs 4,000 crore, they said.
The central probe agency, in the past, has attached assets in Australia and the United States of America (USA) as part of its PMLA probe in other cases related to frauds.
The identified foreign assets are in the name of Modi, his family members and in some cases in the name of firms that the agency has called “bogus or dummy”. It is understood that some showrooms of the diamond jeweller in these countries are under the ED radar which will soon face attachment action.
Nirav Modi has been absconding since the alleged bank fraud, by far the highest in the country in terms of value, came to light early this year and an Interpol arrest warrant was recently notified against him even as India is working to get him extradited from the United Kingdom, where he was last reported to have been based.
The agency has attached assets worth Rs 700 crore of Modi and his family in the country till now.
It has also filed a charge sheet against him alleging that he laundered and diverted over Rs 6,400 crore of bank funds abroad to dummy companies that were under his and his families’ control.
A total of 24 accused were listed in the charge sheet, filed under section 45 of the PMLA, including Nirav Modi, his father Deepak Modi, brother Neeshal Modi, sister Purvi Modi, brother-in-law Maiank Mehta and the designer jewellers’ firms–Ms Solar Exports, Stellar Diamonds and Diamonds R Us.
“These firms and Modi’s Firestar group of companies had fraudulently obtained Rs 6,498 crore through Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) issued by the Punjab National Bank, Brady House branch in Mumbai,” the central probe agency had said in a statement.
