New Delhi: The UK has confirmed to the CBI that fugitive billionaire Nirav Modi, alleged to be the mastermind of India’s biggest banking fraud of over $2 billion, is in their country, officials said on Monday. The Central Bureau of Investigation submitted an extradition request to the home ministry immediately after getting the confirmation, they said.
The request to bring him back will be sent to the United Kingdom through the external affairs ministry. The agency has also requested authorities in the UK to detain him on the basis of the Red Corner Notice issued by the Interpol against him, they said.
The RCN was issued on the request of the CBI in June this year, officials said. In its RCN issued against a fugitive, the Interpol asks its 192 member countries to arrest or detain the person if spotted in their countries after which extradition or deportation proceedings can begin. Nirav Modi, along with his wife Ami Modi, a US citizen, brother Nishal Modi, a Belgian citizen, and uncle Mehul Choksi, all accused in the CBI’s FIRs in the case, left the country in the first week of January, weeks before country’s biggest banking scam surfaced.
Choksi has been located in Antigua, where he has taken citizenship, officials said. Nirav Modi and Choksi have refused to return to India to join the probe, citing business and health reasons, they said. “After his passport was revoked/cancelled by the external affairs ministry, we had updated this information in the diffusion notice. The information that Nirav Modi’s passport has been revoked was provided in the Interpol central database, available to all the member countries, on February 24,” CBI spokesperson Abhishek Dayal had said.
