Nirav's cash, jewels, flats in London, New York attached
The assets were attached as part of five separate orders by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Monday attached assets worth Rs 637 crores of fugitive billionaire Nirav Modi and his family in India and four other nations over the multi-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case. Sources in the Central probe agency said the properties, including jewellery, flats and bank balances in India, Britain and the United States, allegedly belonging to Nirav Modi and his family members, have been attached. The assets were attached as part of five separate orders by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
“Five provisional attachment orders have been issued for the attachment of assets in London, New York, bank balances in Singapore and other countries, a flat in Mumbai and diamond-studded jewellery that was shipped to India from Singapore”, a source said. ED said its sleuths had got multiple court-issued letters rogatories (judicial requests) for legal formalisation of these assets and the action had come to fruition after three months of close coordination between the ED and its foreign counterparts.
The ED said: “The international cooperation has bore fruit. This resulted in seizure and provisional attachment of jewellery, bank accounts and immovable properties worth Rs 637 crores in India as well as four foreign jurisdictions. This has also resulted in recovery and return of jewellery from abroad.” Among the attached properties, as per ED, are two apartments worth Rs 216 crores in New York’s Central Park area in the name of Nirav Modi. A flat worth Rs 56.97 crores on Marylebone Road in London has also been attached, and Nirav Modi’s sister Purvi is its “beneficial owner”, it said. The agency also seized diamond jewellery worth Rs 2.69 crores after getting them to India from Hong Kong in 23 shipments. It added that a bank balance of Rs 44 crores, kept in an account in Singapore in the name of a British Virgin Islands-based company, had also been attached. Besides, five other overseas bank accounts, with Rs 278 crores, have been attached, which belong to Nirav Modi, Purvi Modi and firms that they control, it said. “During the investigation it was found most of the money was transferred to these accounts after FIRs were filed in this scam,” the agency said.