The Enforcement Directorate (ED) seized assets worth Rs. ₹18,170 crore out of ₹22,586 crore, belonging to Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. The three fugitives were accused of cheating the public sector banks. And also transferred assets worth ₹9,371 crore over to the banks so far, the agency said.
The ED further said that it had unearthed the money trail of domestic and international transactions and stashing of assets abroad. The investigation revealed that the three fugitives used dummy entities controlled by them for rotation and siphoning off the funds given by the banks, it said.
While India’s capital is seeking the extradition of Indian fugitives Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya from the UK to face trial in India, Choksi is fighting a legal battle in Antigua to stop the court from sending him to India. PMLA court in India that looks after money laundering cases has declared Mallya and Modi fugitive economic offenders.
Mallya is accused of defrauding and money laundering allegedly for over ₹9,000 crore. His permission to file an appeal in the UK Supreme Court has been denied, which has made his extradition to India final. He is facing charges of defrauding a consortium of banks involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines in 2013.
Both Modi and his uncle Choksi are wanted for fraud worth ₹14,500 crore in the Punjab National Bank (PNB). Modi’s extradition to India has also been cleared. The duo has allegedly bribed the State-run bank officials to get Letters of Undertaking (LoU) based on which they availed loans from overseas banks that remained unpaid.
On March 19, 2019, Modi was arrested and was lodged at London’s Wandsworth Prison. He appeared on the hearings via video link from the prison as the case went on for years. After deported, Modi will be kept at Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail, which held a special cell ready for him at barrack 12.
