Nirav Modi's sister Purvi Modi has paid ₹ 17.5 crore from her London bank account to the Enforcement Directorate after she turned an approver in the Punjab National Bank fraud case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Thursday said it has recovered Rs 17.25 crore from an account in the United Kingdom belonging to Purvi Modi which was opened by fugitive diamond jeweller Nirav Modi.The ED, in a statement, said the money did not belong to Purvi and the account was being operated by Nirav Modi. Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi are accused of routing transactions of about Rs 13,600 crore through fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) of Punjab National Bank (PNB). Both are being investigated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Mehul Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi had left India in the first week of January, 2018, weeks before the bank fraud was exposed. In March 2019, Modi was arrested in the UK and is currently lodged at Wandsworth prison in London. So far, the ED has seized assets worth Rs 2,400 crore belonging to Modi in India and abroad. Earlier this week, Modi moved the UK high court for an oral hearing with a renewed “leave to appeal” application for a judge to determine if it can proceed to a full appeal hearing against the extradition ordered by a lower court. In April, the UK government approved the extradition of Modi to India following a UK court’s February order that ordered Modi’s extradition holding that the evidence against him was prima facie sufficient to order his extradition to India, to face charges. Mehul Choksi was recently detained in Dominica for illegal entry after what he described as an "abduction attempt". He had been staying in neighbouring Antigua and Barbuda since 2018.