Nirav Modi Diverted Rs 934 Crore to Personal Accounts

Fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi diverted Rs 934 crore into his personal account and two other accounts in the name of his wife and father, says the supplementary chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate in the Mumbai special court on Friday.

Of this, Rs 560 crore ($80 million) has been credited into his account, Rs 200 crore ($30 million) into wife Ami’s account and Rs 174 crore ($25 million) into his father Deepak Modi’s personal bank account maintained abroad, officials said. Modi is the key accused in the Rs 6,500 crore scam in which Punjab National Bank (PNB) was duped through fraudulent letters of undertaking(LoU).

Last week, Enforcement Directorate (ED) had filed a supplementary chargesheet in the case before special PMLA court in Mumbai mentioning these details. ED unearthed the flow of 91% of the defrauded money. The agency submitted the details of the bank statements of Dubai, UAE and Singapore based companies in the second chargesheet to establish that Nirav along with his family members channelled the defrauded money into their accounts. ED has also made Ami Modi an accused in the case now. She was not mentioned as an accused in the first chargseheet that ED had filed last year.

Nirav Modi defrauded PNB by submitting inflated import document of his India-based companies to PNB , asking to release the payment to foreign based exporters — mainly in Dubai and Hong Kong — through LoUs. The exporters were in fact shell companies controlled by Nirav. Every time Nirav would request the bank to increase the LoU amount, a major portion was used to clear previous dues and the balance amount was utilised for his personal activities. But the fraud got exposed in January 2018 and Nirav fled the country along with his family members. Last May, ED had filed first chargesheet in the case making Nirav, his Belgium-based father Deepak, brother Neeshal, sister Purvi and her husband Maiank Mehta accused in the case.

In the second chargesheet, ED focused on the money trail that led to Nirav Modi’s wife and other family members. Officials stated that after receiving PNB money into shell companies’ accounts, a portion of it was diverted into various other shell companies before it reached Pacific Diamonds company, controlled by Nirav. The bank statement of Pacific Diamonds shows transfer of huge amounts into the accounts of Modi and his father.

In another instance, after routing the PNB money into the shell company, a portion of it was transferred into account of Fine Classic FZE, controlled by Purvi Modi. She then transferred part of the money into her Singapore based bank account from where she transferred 30 million USD into Ami Modi’s account, which has been used to purchase a flat in London.

The chargesheet also contained documents to show that most of the shell companies in which defrauded money was received abroad were controlled by companies based in tax havens, including British Virgin Island. The shareholding pattern was structured in a layered fashion that the actual control was in the hands of Neeshal and Purvi Modi till 2012, says the chargesheet

ED has sent an extradition request to the UK, where Nirav has been hiding since July 2018 and it is pending before a local court there. Recently, a UK daily reported that Nirav was staying in London and has started a diamond business with new company name.

Courtesy: Economic Times