Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi loan default case: ED attaches assets worth Rs. 250 crore

New Delhi, Oct 17: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had attached assets worth approximately Rs. 250 crore in connection with fugitives Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi's bank loan default case.

Enforcement Directorate attached various assets and valuables (Cut and Polished Diamonds) worth Rs 218.46 Crore belonging to Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi, Mihir Bhansali and others in connection with PNB scam, reported ANI.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had on October 1 attached properties and bank accounts to the tune of Rs 637 crore in Nirav Modi case. The seizure includes jewellery/bank accounts/immovable properties in India as well as four foreign juridictions under section 5 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The is one of the rare cases where the investigation agency has seized the properties abroad.

Nirav Modi, his uncle Mehul Choksi and others are being probed under various criminal laws after the fraud came to light this year following a complaint by the Punjab National Bank (PNB) that they allegedly cheated the nationalised bank to the tune of over Rs 13,000 crore, with the purported involvement of a few employees of the bank.

In September, Union Bank of India has taken fugitive billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi to a court in Hong Kong after two of his companies defaulted on more than USD 5.49 million in credit facilities.

Before that, Indian agencies were miffed after British authorities informed them that their letter of request relating to the extradition of Nirav Modi could be shared with the fugitive diamantaire.