PNB Scam: Interpol Issues Red Corner Notice Against Nirav Modi, Brother

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 the CBI, probing the over $2 billion Punjab National Bank scam, officials said today.

The notice was issued on June 29 but it has been made public today by the International police cooperation agency, officials told PTI, adding that it will make unhindered movement of Modi across border difficult and might lead to his arrest.

The International Criminal Police Organization has issued the notice on the basis of a charge sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, in a special court in Mumbai, and the arrest warrant was issued by Special Judge JC Jagdale.

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.

Nishal and Parab have also been charge-sheeted by the CBI along with Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi for alleged corruption and cheating.

Modi along with his wife Ami Modi, a U.S. 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 the country's biggest banking scam surfaced.

Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi have refused to return to India to join probe, citing business and health reasons among others, they said.

In the notice, the 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, they said.

The CBI, designated for coordinating with Interpol, has provided it with four addresses of Nirav Modi in tony localities of New York --Manhattan, East Chester and Central and one of Dubai in Al Bayan along with his possible travels to Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Belarus, Brussels, New York, UAE among others, the sources said.

The CBI had tried to track the movements of Nirav Modi through a diffusion notice issued through the Interpol on February 15, but it had limited success as only the United Kingdom responded to the CBI request, they said.