The Enforcement Directorate has alleged that this is a bigger bank scam in volume than that of the Punjab National Bank fraud by fugitive diamantaires Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, as it involves fraud to the tune of about Rs 16,000 crore.
The ED made this claim while seeking the 62-year-old Nationalist Congres Party leader's custody for interrogation in the money laundering probe linked to the activities of Ibrahim and his aides.
"Well, he never used words like escape or shared with me such a plan like this. However, he did ask me twice if I have ever been to Cuba, he also told me that the next time we may meet in Cuba. He never explained the escape plan but I'm certain that Dominica is not his final destination but if you ask my opinion, I can be more and more certain that Cuba could have been his final destination," Barbara told ANI.
The agency said that since all the applicants, except one, were public banks, the money sought to be recovered was public money, restoration of assets in their favour was in public interest.
The PMLA court in Mumbai has sought their appearance on September 25 (Nirav Modi) and 26 (Mehul Choksi) respectively under the fugitive economic offender law.
Lalit Modi had gained in prominence and it was all evident from his high-flying lifestyle
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.
The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court in the High Court of Justice Commonwealth of Dominica on Friday put a stay on the repatriation of India-born fugitive Mehul Choksi from Dominica. "This order is to be served immediately on the defendants by email and fax and in person, and the head of immigration at the Douglas Charles airport by email and fax," read the court order. The court will hold the next hearing in the matter on May 28 at 9 am local time.
The Supreme Court on Monday awarded a four-month sentence to fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, accused in a bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, in a contempt case.
CJI Lalit concurred with the minority view of Justice S Ravindra Bhat who held the EWS quota as "unconstitutional" for excluding poor among SCs, STs and OBCs.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and various other state ministers sat on a dharna in Mumbai on Thursday to protest against the arrest of their cabinet colleague Nawab Malik by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case.
If the fear of ED could drive the powerful people of today to be honest or at least be minimally corrupt, will it not be a great thing for our nation?, asks Sudhir Bisht.
Choksi filed the affidavit in connection with two petitions submitted by him in the HC seeking dismissal of an application filed by the ED in a special court for declaring him a fugitive economic offender.
According to one of the Kochi team co-owners, Modi had driven them to 'madness'.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi's meeting with British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in London triggered a row back home with the Bharatiya Janata Party asking him whether he endorsed the UK opposition leader's "anti-India" views.
Medieval heroes, cursed heroes, monsters, scamsters, there's no dearth of action on OTT this week, Sukanya Verma tells us.
Pakistan, which is claiming it has no legal arrangement with India for handing over terror suspects following the Mumbai attacks, is forgetting one of its own Acts, which provides for transfer of such people to a country with which it has not signed an extradition treaty.
Sebi has barred fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi and one Rakesh Girdharlal Gajera from the capital markets for one year and levied a fine totalling Rs 2.5 crore on them for violating insider trading rules in the matter of Gitanjali Gems. In addition, they have been restrained from buying, selling or otherwise dealing in securities of Gitanjali Gems Ltd (GGL) for a period of two years. Also, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has directed Gajera to disgorge a sum of Rs 15.82 crore.
Noting the urgency and desire on the part of India to extradite people accused of corruption, the UK on Friday said a "legal process" is on in Vijay Mallya's matter and it has to be followed through as there cannot be any shortcut. In May last year, the fugitive businessman lost his appeals in the British Supreme Court against his extradition to India to face money laundering and fraud charges. Asked when can Mallya be extradited to India and if some kind of legal issue is still pending in the matter, new British High Commissioner to India, Alex Ellis, without pointing to any particular case, said he recognises the urgency, importance and the desire to get back people who are accused of corruption to India.
The government on Wednesday extended the tenure of Enforcement Directorate Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra by a year till November 18, 2022, days after the Centre brought ordinances to allow ED and Central Bureau of Investigation directors to occupy the office for up to five years.
The official liquidator said it would be in public interest that these properties are restored to him so that the interest of all creditors, including the applicant banks, can be "safeguarded".
The Dominica high court has stayed the removal of Choksi from its soil and put a gag order on the developments till the matter is heard in an open court on June 2.
A special court in Mumbai on Wednesday reserved till Thursday its order on the bail pleas of former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh and state minister Nawab Malik seeking the one-day relief to cast their votes in the June 10 Rajya Sabha elections.
Only 40 per cent of the forensic information required was made available by PNB and as such, there is no way that one can put a cap on the total value of LoUs issued. He is the second Indian to be declared a fugitive economic offender, after liquor baron Vijay Mallya.
The Indian Embassy in Washington, DC, went into damage-control mode on Thursday following the arrest of Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, in connection with an alleged fraudulent visa application for a domestic worker.
Magistrate judge Jacqueline Chooljian on Thursday ordered the defence attorneys and prosecutors to file additional documents by July 15, which was reported by a US news agency.
In a major blow to Nirav Modi, a bankruptcy court in the US has rejected a petition of the fugitive diamond merchant and two of his associates, seeking dismissal of fraud allegations against them by the trustee of three companies they previously owned indirectly.
SBI-led consortium expects to make over Rs 13,000 crore from sale of assets
The government is bound by the assurance given by the then deputy prime minister L K Advani to the Portugal government that the maximum sentence handed out to gangster Abu Salem will not exceed 25 years, the Union home secretary has told the Supreme Court.
Companies owned by fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi have allegedly siphoned off over Rs 6,344.96 crore from the Punjab National Bank (PNB) using fraudulent letters of undertaking and foreign letters of credit, a CBI investigation into the scam has detected. The findings were submitted by the CBI in a supplementary chargesheet filed before a special court in Mumbai last week, where the agency said the PNB was conned by its employees who were allegedly hand in gloves with Choksi and his company executives and who facilitated the scam as part of a criminal conspiracy. The PNB officials at the bank's Brady House branch in Mumbai issued 165 letters of undertaking (LoUs) and 58 foreign letters of credit (FLCs) during March-April 2017, against which 311 bills were discounted.
Fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi, wanted in India in connection with the estimated $2-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case, was on Tuesday further remanded in custody until January 7 by a UK court hearing his extradition case. The 49-year-old businessman, who has been behind bars at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London since his arrest last year following India's extradition request for him, appeared via videolink for a routine 28-day remand hearing on Tuesday before Westminster Magistrates' Court in London. The final hearings in the extradition case are scheduled over two days, on January 7 and 8 next year, when District Judge Samuel Goozee is scheduled to hear closing arguments from both sides before he hands down his judgment a few weeks later.
Wanted diamond merchant Nirav Modi on Thursday lost his fight against being extradited to India as a United Kingdom judge ruled that he can be sent back to face charges of fraud and money laundering in the estimated $2 billion Punjab National Bank scam case.
The Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that "secret" extradition process was going on to bring fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya to the country but it was not aware about its status. The Centre also told the top court that it was not a party to the proceedings.
Gangster Suresh Pujari, wanted in several extortion cases in Mumbai region and Karnataka, has been deported to India, a senior police official said on Wednesday.
The continuation appeal hearing in the extradition case of Nirav Modi, the fugitive diamond merchant wanted in India to face charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to an estimated $2-billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case, is listed to be heard in the high court in London on June 28. The 51-year-old diamond merchant had lodged an appeal against his extradition order on mental health grounds. "The hearing is listed for the 28th June," confirmed the Royal Courts of Justice administrative office last week.
The central government, in its typical sledgehammer style, has unleashed the might of its investigative agencies like the Enforcement Directorate against NCP and Shiv Sena leaders.
The 62-year-old Nationalist Congress Party leader was taken into custody shortly before 3 pm after he was questioned for about six hours at the ED office in south Mumbai's Ballard Estate area.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that fugitive businessmen Vijaya Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi are "coming back" to India" to face the law.
Rahman, 50, was tried in absentia with the court declaring him a "fugitive". He now lives in London where he is believed to have sought asylum though the British authorities have declined to reveal his immigration status.
The high court verdict in April upheld the 2018 ruling by Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot at the end of a year-long extradition trial that the former Kingfisher Airlines boss had a "case to answer" in the Indian courts.
