The Enforcement Directorate Friday said it has attached gems, jewellery and bank deposits worth Rs 253.62 crore of some Hong Kong-based companies of fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi as part of a money laundering probe. 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 there and these have been provisionally attached under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the federal probe agency said in a statement. The amount kept in banks amounts to $30.98 million and Hong Kong dollars 5.75 million, which is equivalent to Rs 253.62 crore (as on July 22, 2022), it said.
The CBI has registered an FIR against an officer of Punjab National Bank (PNB), now suspended, for allegedly cheating the state-run lender to the tune of Rs 168.59 crore through 34 fake bank guarantees, officials said Thursday. Nearly four years after LoU (letter of undertaking) scam allegedly perpetrated by uncle-nephew duo of Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi bled the PNB to the tune of about Rs 13,000 crore, bank official Priya Ranjan Kumar followed similar modus operandi to issue 34 fake bank guarantees without making any entries in its core banking system Finacle, according to the CBI FIR. "As per the interim investigation report dated November 27, 2022, it emerges that the fraud has been perpetrated by the bank staff in collusion with some unknown persons through illegal and unauthorized usage of the bank's systems.
The valuables include polished diamonds, pearls and silver jewellery and are worth Rs 1,350 crore.
Given how everything has played out, Mehul Choksi, now 62, achieved all that he wanted but for all the wrong reasons, says Pavan Lall.
The court in Gujarat's Surat city which on Thursday sentenced Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to a two-year jail term in a criminal defamation case noted that the seriousness of his crime increased because a speech delivered by a Member of Parliament has a "very wide impact on the public."
However, Jaitley's son-in-law had earlier issued a statement stating that his law firm had returned the retainership the moment they came to know that the company was involved in a scam.
The Income Tax Department had last month auctioned several art works that were owned by absconding diamond merchant Nirav Modi for Rs 59.37 crore.
Despite Nirav Modi win, in the last five years, India managed to bring only about 20 fugitive offenders.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has rebutted Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Randeep Singh Surjewala's allegations regarding "wilful defaulters, bad loans and write-offs", and stated that they have "attempted to mislead people in a brazen manner".
Bharat Biotech on Wednesday said a study has demonstrated that a booster dose of Covaxin has a neutralising effect on the Omicron and Delta variants of COVID-19.
A special court here on Friday allowed 'restoration' of properties worth Rs 500 crore of fugitive jeweler Nirav Modi 's firms to Punjab National Bank (PNB). This is the third such order in a span of about two weeks, with the total value of properties owned by Nirav Modi's companies being restored in this manner now standing at approximately Rs 1,000 crore.
The Shiv Sena said Opposition was not targeted in such manner even during Emergency
He said that Government of Dominica and law enforcement agencies, unless the court rules otherwise, can deport him to India because he is an Indian citizen, Antigua News Room reported.
"Religious festivals seem to have become occasions to intimidate and bully others -- a far cry from when they were occasions for joy and celebration. Instead, there is intimidation and discrimination only on account of their religion, food, caste, gender or language," Gandhi said.
Diamantaire Mehul Choksi will "only" return to Dominica to face trial for illegal entry into that country when a doctor "certifies" that he is fit to stand trial, the media there reported citing conditions laid down by the Dominica high court while granting him bail. In a major setback to Indian efforts to bring him from the Caribbean country, Dominica high court Judge Bernie Stephenson allowed the businessman to return to Antigua and Barbuda, where he has been living as a citizen since 2018 after leaving India, to seek medical advice from neurologist Hayden Osborne at the Mount St. John's Medical Centre, Dominica News Online reported. Choksi is having a clot in brain besides other health issues such as diabetes and hypertension, his legal team has submitted.
Some youths started shaking the bridge intentionally, making it difficult for people to walk.
The Enforcement Directorate has attached assets worth over Rs 14 crore belonging to the Gitanjali Group and its promoter and jeweller Mehul Choksi, one of the prime accused in the alleged over Rs 13,000 crore PNB loan fraud case. The properties attached, under the anti-money laundering law, include a flat measuring 1,460 sq feet located at O2 Tower in Goregaon area of Mumbai, gold and platinum jewellery, diamond stones, necklaces made of silver and pearls, watches and a Mercedes Benz car, the ED said in a statement. A provisional order for attachment has been issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for the assets worth a total Rs 14.45 crore that are in the name of Gitanjali Group of companies and its director Mehul Choksi, it said.
Diamantaire Mehul Choksi has landed in Antigua and Barbuda, where he has been staying since 2018 after leaving India, after 51 days of custody in neighbouring Dominica for illegal entry which his lawyers claim was a kidnapping plan, local media reported. Choksi, 62, was given bail by Dominica High Court to travel back to Antigua for seeking medical help from a neurologist based there. After depositing bail money of EC Dollars 10,000, Choksi in a shirt and shorts flew back to Antigua in a chartered plane, Antigua News Room reported.
The action came after investigations carried out by an inter-ministerial committee formed by the home ministry in 2020.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday told a sessions court in Surat his conviction by a magistrate's court in a 2019 defamation case over his "Modi surname" remark was erroneous, patently perverse, and he was sentenced in a manner so as to attract disqualification as a member of Parliament.
A picture released by the federal agency showed bundles of seized Rs 500 currency notes along with a few in the denomination of Rs 2,000 and Rs 200 stacked together on a bed.
They said the global arrest warrant against the Belgian national Nehal, 40, has been issued on charges of alleged money laundering that is being probed by the Enforcement Directorate.
Banerjee slammed the opposition for a "malicious campaign" launched against her, asserting that she does not support corruption.
Subhash Shankar Parab, a key accused in the Rs 7,000 crore diamantaire Nirav Modi bank fraud case, was "deported" from Cairo on Tuesday after a long diplomatic and legal process, officials said in New Delhi. A CBI team had gone to Egypt's capital to bring back 50-year-old Parab, who was allegedly kept in illegal confinement in a Cairo suburb by Modi, the fugitive diamantaire, they said. The CBI had been chasing Parab, deputy general manager (finance) in Modi's Firestar Diamond and understood to be a key witness to the Letters of Undertaking (LoU) submitted to the Punjab National Bank (PNB) to siphon off over Rs 7,000 crore, they said.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met Foreign Minister of Antigua and Barbuda E P Chet Greene on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly and raised the extradition issue of Choksi, who is currently in the Caribbean island.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, senior leaders K C Venugopal, P Chidambaram and Salman Khurshid were among the party's top brass taking part in the satyagraha at Rajghat.
A quick computation puts the following value to the seizures.
Dominica high court on Thursday adjourned the hearing on a habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of diamond trader Mehul Choksi, local media reported. Judge Bernie Stephenson will decide the next date of hearing after meeting both sides, Antigua News Room said. The adjournment is to allow lawyers for Choksi and the Dominica government "to agree on the language to be used with respect to the injunction filed to prevent his removal from Dominica", the media outlet reported.
CBI Jt. Director, A K Sharma, weakened Mallya's "Look Out" notice, says Rahul.
Choksi said that the ED has attached his properties illegally.
As Lord Ganesha arrives in our homes, Subhash K Jha brings you five devotional Ganpati songs.
Rediff readers sent us these photographs from their travels.
A State Bank of India (SBI)-led consortium that gave loans to fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya on Friday received Rs 5,824.5 crore in its accounts after shares of UBL, earlier attached under the anti-money laundering law, were sold recently, the ED said. Mallya is accused in a multiple banks loan default case of about Rs 9,000 crore. The disputes resolution tribunal (DRT) had sold these shares on June 23 after the Enforcement Directorate had transferred shares worth about Rs 6,624 crore of UBL to the SBI-led consortium on the directions of a special PMLA court that is hearing the case involving Mallya in Mumbai. These shares were attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the ED, a central probe agency.
#MainBhiChowkidar was trending world wide on Twitter.
A Dominica Magistrate Court has adjourned till June 25 the hearing into alleged illegal entry of fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi into the Caribbean island nation, local media there reported. On Monday, the Magistrate Court was to start hearing the case of Choksi's "illegal entry" into the country on May 23 but he was a "no show", a media website Natureislenews reported. His legal team submitted a medical certificate from the doctors of Dominica China Friendship Hospital, where Choksi is being held, of "mental stress" and elevated blood pressure.
Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne has asked neighbouring Dominica, where fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi was caught, to hand the diamantaire over to India directly, local media reported.
Don't expect the synthetic stones to surpass natural ones anytime soon because the world's biggest miners of diamonds aren't looking to get into man-made diamonds.
Choksi, along with his nephew and millionaire designer jeweller Nirav Modi, is being investigated by the ED for allegedly defrauding PNB, the country's second largest lender.
If there is a morality tale here, it is that debt and death spare no king.
About 40 per cent of the money lost by banks in the PNB scam and the fraud linked to fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya's defunct Kingfisher Airlines has been realised by way of sale of shares seized under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the Enforcement Directorate said on Wednesday.
