Interpol issues Red Corner Notice against Nirav Modi in PNB fraud

New Delhi: The Interpol has issued a Red Corner Notice against absconding diamantaire Nirav Modi, his brother Nishal Modi and his employee Subhash Parab on the request of central investigative agencies — CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), probing the multi-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam.

The notice was issued on June 29 but made public on Monday by the Interpol, sources said, adding that it will make unhindered movement of Modi across border difficult and might lead to his arrest. The Interpol has issued the RCN on the basis of chargesheet filed by the CBI in a special court in Mumbai and the arrest warrant issued by the special judge J.C. Jagdale there.

In its Red Corner Notice issued against a fugitive, the Interpol asks its 192 member countries to arrest or detain the person if spotted in their countries after which extradition or deportation proceedings can begin. Modi along with his wife Ami Modi, a US citizen, brother Nishal Modi, a Belgian citizen, and uncle Mehul Choksi, all accused in the CBI FIRs in the case, had left the country in the first week of January, weeks before country’s biggest banking scam surfaced.

Nishal and Parab have also been chargesheeted by the CBI along with Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi for alleged corruption and cheating. Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi have allegedly refused to return India to join probe citing business and health reasons among others, they said. In the RCN, Interpol has given details of all the five passports of Modi, issued between May 2008 and May 2017, including that these passports have been cancelled by the government yet he has managed to travel on the basis of revoked and cancelled passports, sources said. The CBI, nodal agency for Interpol in India, has provided it with four addresses of Nirav Modi in tony localities of New York —Manhattan, East Chester and Central and one of Dubai.