Nirav Modi opens stores in Macau, Kuala Lumpur despite lookout notice

February 18, 2018 12:58

It has been revealed that Nirav Modi, jeweller to Hollywood and Bollywood stars, opened at least two new stores days after the first FIR was registered against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the PNB scam.

Though the state-run Punjab National Bank claims it detected the multi-crore scam allegedly involving fake Letters of Undertaking, details emerging tell a different story.

In the bank's first complaint letter, its deputy general manager Avneesh Nepalia wrote to the joint director of CBI on January 29 that on January 16 when they asked for 100 per cent cash margin from diamond trader Nirav Modi's associates to avail the LoU facility from PNB's Brady House branch in Mumbai, the bank was told that the company had been availing this facility for years.

This raised suspicion and then the scam was unearthed, the letter said. However, sources said that actually claims raised by forex banks first brought attention to the matter and blew the lid off the scam. The sources said that in the first week of January, Punjab National Bank's Brady House branch received claims from Allahabad and Axis Banks' forex branches.

LoUs were issued in favour of Allahabad Bank and Axis Bank in Hong Kong. This is when PNB officials searched their data and they neither found any guarantees issued in the core banking system, nor any import bill against which this alleged guarantee was given.

Further investigations revealed that the LoUs, which were missing in the bank's own CBS, were present in SWIFT instructions to the overseas branches of Indian banks for raising buyers' credit and funding the NOSTRO accounts.

This prompted panic as PNB officials noticed that some insider had been issuing LoUs without import bill and mentioning this in the CBS.

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