PNB fraud: ED moves court seeking fugitive offender tag against Nirav , Choksi

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday moved a special PMLA court here seeking to declare diamond traders Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi as ‘fugitive economic offenders’ and to confiscate their assets worth Rs 3,500 crore in the USD 2 billion PNB fraud case, officials said.
They said two separate applications, under the recently promulgated Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance, were filed against the duo before the court that hears matters under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The agency had early this month moved a similar application against businessman Vijay Mallya in the Rs 9,000-crore alleged bank loan fraud case and the court recently issued summons to him for August 27 under the new ordinance.
The fresh application seeks to immediately confiscate assets worth about Rs 3,500 crore of Nirav Modi and Choksi and their companies.
The agency seeks to confiscate assets, both movable and immovable, including those located in the United Kingdom and the UAE.
The move has been made on the basis of the two PMLA charge sheets filed by the agency against the two designer diamond jewellers on charges of alleged money laundering.
“Investigations have revealed that Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi have committed the offence of cheating against Punjab National Bank (PNB) in connivance with certain bank officials by fraudulently getting the LOUs/FLCs issued without following prescribed procedure and caused a wrongful loss to the bank. They have further siphoned off the proceeds of crime so generated through layering through multiple dummy, related, connected entities in India and abroad,” the agency said in its application.
Nirav Modi and his uncle Choksi are being investigated by the ED and the CBI after it was detected that they allegedly cheated Punjab National Bank of more than Rs 13,400 crore with the purported involvement of a few of its employees.