The Enforcement Directorate has attached gems, jewellery and bank deposits worth ₹253.62 crore of companies linked to fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi as part of a money laundering probe, the agency said on Friday.
With this, the total attached and seized assets tally in the case stands at ₹2,650.07 crore, the ED added.
Nirav Modi, 50, is presently lodged in a UK jail and has lost his extradition plea to India in connection with the USD 2-billion PNB fraud case that is also being investigated by the CBI.
According to the ED, it had initiated an investigation by recording ECIR under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) in the case of PNB Bank Fraud of ₹6,498.20 crore.
“During the course of the PMLA investigation, some assets of Nirav Modi group of companies in Hong Kong were identified in the form of gems and jewelleries lying in private vaults and bank balances in accounts maintained at Hong Kong, which is provisionally attached vide instant attachment order of Rs. 253.62 Crore under Section 5 of PMLA, 2002,” the ED said in a statement.
Previously, the ED had attached movable and immovable assets of Nirav Modi and associates to the tune of ₹2,396.45 crore in India and abroad.
“Furthermore, movable and immovable assets of Nirav Modi and his associates amounting to ₹1,389 crore, have been confiscated under provisions of Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 by Special Court (FEOA), Mumbai. Process of physical handing over of confiscated assets is in progress and part of the confiscated assets has already been physically handed over to victim banks,” it added.
