A Red Corner Notice has been issued by the Interpol to fugitive diamond merchant Nirav Modi’s wife Amy Modi on Tuesday.
The notice has been issued in connection with a money laundering case registered against her in India.
Nirav Modi along with his uncle Mehul Choksi are being investigated by the ED and the CBI after it was detected that they allegedly cheated Punjab National Bank of more than Rs 13,400 crore with the purported involvement of a few of its employees.
The 48-year-old Nirav Modi was arrested from London in United Kingdom last year and is fighting an extradition to India.
Modi is currently lodged at Wandsworth Prison in London.
His uncle Mehul Choksi has taken the citizenship of Island of Antigua and has cited health reason for not returning to India.
A Red Corner Notice is an international arrest warrant and initiates the extradition process of the accused.
Similar notice has already been served against prime accused Nirav Modi along with his brother Nehal and his sister Purvi.
The charges against the diamond merchant centre around his firms Diamonds R Us, Solar Exports and Stellar Diamonds making fraudulent use of a credit facility offered by the Punjab National Bank (PNB), known as “letters of undertaking” (LoUs).
According to the Government of India’s case, a number of PNB staff conspired with Nirav Modi to ensure LoUs were issued to these companies without ensuring they were subject to the required credit check, without recording the issuance of the LoUs and without charging the required commission upon the transactions. This resulted in a fraud amounting to nearly USD 2 billion.
Nirav Modi claims to have come to the UK ahead of a planned initial public offering (IPO) but an Interpol Red Notice was issued against him before he was traced to a plush rented apartment at Centre Point in central London early last year.
An extradition request from the Indian government was certified by the UK Home Office in February last year before his arrest by Scotland Yard on March 19, 2019. The jeweller remains behind bars at Wandsworth Prison in south-west London since then, failing to get bail despite repeated attempts.
A second extradition request, relating to “causing the disappearance of evidence” and intimidating witnesses or “criminal intimidation to cause death”, was also certified earlier this year.