The saga of “diamond fugitives” Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi is drawing to a close: According to IDEX Online, assets worth $1.3 billion seized from Modi, Choksi and businessman Vijay Mallya “have been returned to the banks in India from which they were allegedly defrauded”.
Modi, along with other businessmen including his uncle Mehul Choksi, owner of Indian jewelry retail giant Gitanjali Gems, is suspected of colluding with employees of the Punjab National Bank out of about $2 billion, and $1 billion from other banks.
India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) said in a press release that it had “unraveled a web of dummy entities at home and abroad used to rotate and siphon off bank funds”. It added that it had recovered 80% of the missing money, half of which was returned to a consortium of public sector banks allegedly defrauded of $3 billion.
