PNB fraud: CBI registers fresh Rs 3.21 billion case against Nirav Modi

The CBI on Thursday said that it has registered a fresh case against diamantaire Nirav Modi for causing a loss of Rs 3.21 billion to Punjab National Bank (PNB) by availing different credit facilities between 2013 and 2017.

According to a Central Bureau of Investigation official, the case was registered after the bureau received a fresh complaint from the PNB on Sunday.

Former finance president of Nirav Modi' Firestar Diamonds International Ltd Vipul Ambani, chief finance officer Ravi Gupta, other directors and officials of the company, and unidentified public servants of the bank were also named in the complaint, they said.

This is the second CBI case in which Nirav Modi has been named by the investigating agency.

In its complaint to the CBI, the bank alleged that during its internal investigation it had spotted circular transactions between the diamantaire promoted partnership firms namely -- Solar Exports, Stellar Diamonds and Diamond R Us -- and Firestar group of companies.

The head office of the bank had declared the accounts of Firestar Diamonds and Firestar International as fraud and reported it to the Reserve Bank of India on Sunday, it said.

Nirav Modi, along with his uncle Mehul Choksi of Gitanjali Group, has been accused of defrauding the PNB of Rs 126 billion, with Rs 13 billion being added to the fraud kitty on February 26.

The CBI had filed the first FIR in the scam on February 14 against Nirav Modi, his wife Ami, brother Nishal, Choksi and his firms Diamond R US, Solar Exports and Stellar Diamond.

Modi, his family and Choksi had left the country in early January.

The CBI filed a second FIR on February 15 over a Rs 48.86-billion fraud against Choksi's Gitanjali Group.

To date, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has carried out searches at over 198 locations across the country and seized properties worth nearly Rs 60 billion, while the CBI has arrested at least 19 persons in the case so far.