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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has said it has confiscated assets worth Rs 329.66 crore of diamond merchant Nirav Modi under the fugitive economic offenders law.
This is the first confiscation of assets order issued under the law that was brought by the Modi government in 2018 with an aim to deter economic offenders from evading the process of law by remaining outside the jurisdiction of Indian courts.
The businessman, his uncle Mehul Choksi and others are being probed by the ED on money laundering charges in connection with an over $2 billion alleged bank fraud at a PNB branch in Mumbai.
‘The confiscated properties are in the form of four flats at the iconic building Samudra Mahal in Worli Mumbai, a sea-side farm house and land in Alibaug, a wind mill in Jaisalmer, a flat in London, residential flats in UAE and shares and bank deposits,’ the central probe agency said in a statement.
A special court in Mumbai had on June 8 authorised the ED to confiscate the assets. Nirav Modi, 49, was declared a fugitive economic offender by the same court on December 5 last year.
‘The ED has attached the properties worth Rs 329.66 crore under the FEO Act, 2018 which now stands confiscated to the central government,’ it said.
