New Delhi: The Singapore High Court has ordered freezing of bank deposits worth Rs 44.41 crore, kept in that country by Punjab National Bank fraud accused Nirav Modi’s sister and brother-in-law, as part of a money laundering probe in India, the Enforcement Directorate said Tuesday.
The agency said the bank account is in the name of Pavillion Point Corporation based in the British Virgin Islands, a company that is ‘beneficially owned’ by Purvi Modi and Maiank Mehta. It should be stated here that Nirav is currently under arrest in this alleged bank fraud case in London from where India is seeking his extradition.
The high court has put a freeze on deposits of USD 6.122 million (Rs 44.41 crore) following ED’s request on the ground that the money was ‘proceeds of crime’ illegally siphoned off by Nirav from PNB, it said in a statement.
It was, however, not known immediately when the order was given by the court. The latest order comes a week after four Swiss bank accounts, holding deposits of Rs 283.16 crore, of Nirav and Purvi were similarly ‘frozen’ by authorities in Switzerland as part of this case.
The agency had attached this bank account in Singapore as part of a provisional order issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) last year in September, along with the four Swiss bank accounts, and that order was confirmed by the Adjudicating Authority of the law in March this year. The five overseas accounts then, as per the ED, had Rs 278 crore in deposits.
The ED, official sources said, subsequently made a request to Singaporean authorities to freeze the account and had sent official documents of the attachment order to be perused by the officials and the high court of that country.
The ED, along with the CBI, is investigating Nirav, his uncle Mehul Choksi and others for alleged money laundering and corruption to defraud the Brady House branch of PNB in Mumbai to the tune of over Rs 13,000 crore.
PTI