Interpol Issues Red Corner Notice Against Diamantaire Nirav Modi

File image of Nirav Modi. 

(Photo Courtesy: Facebook/Nirav Modi)

Accepting the demand of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Interpol has issued a Red Corner Notice (RCN) against diamantaire Nirav Modi, his brother Nishal Modi and his employee Subhash Parab in connection with an over USD 2 billion scam, reported PTI.

The red corner notice will finally allow the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to move UK court to extradite him.

The case pertains to cheating state-run Punjab National Bank through fraudulent issuance of Letters of Undertaking and Foreign Letters of Credit worth over USD 2 billion (about Rs 13,000 crore) by Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, both absconding since the first week of January.

(Photo Courtesy: Screengrab Interpol website)

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

The Red Corner Notice has been issued on the basis of the chargesheet filed by the CBI in a special court in Mumbai and the arrest warrant issued by the judge Special 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.

Modi along with his wife Ami Modi, a US citizen, brother Nishal Modi, a Belgian citizen, and uncle Mehul Choksi, all named 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.

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

Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi have refused to return to India, 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, specifying that he managed to travel on his passports that were revoked and cancelled by the government.

The CBI which is the national investigative body, designated for coordinating with Interpol, has provided it with four addresses of Nirav Modi, including those in New York – Manhattan, East Chester and Central, and one in Dubai’s Al Bayan along with his possible travels to Hong Kong, 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 15 February, but it had limited success as only the United Kingdom responded to the CBI’s request, they said.

Nirav Modi managed to travel across several countries even after information about his passport being revoked by the Indian government was flashed in the Interpol central database on 24 February, the CBI had earlier said.

After the passport was revoked/cancelled by the External Affairs Ministry, we had updated this information in the diffusion notice. The information that Nirav Modi’s passport has been revoked was provided in the Interpol central database, available to all the member countries, on 24 February.

CBI spokesperson Abhishek Dayal had said.

He had said that after the "diffusion" notice was issued by the Interpol on the request of CBI, the agency followed it up with six countries where Nirav Modi was suspected to have fled. The agency requested these countries to share information about his whereabouts and movements.

The agency sent these reminders to the Interpol coordination agency of the United Kingdom on 25 April, 22 May, 24 May and 28 May.

Similar reminders were also sent to the agencies in US, Singapore, Belgium, the UAE and France, they said.

(With inputs from PTI)