Mehul Choksi diverted over 3,250 crore rupees to foreign countries

Enforcement Directorate (ED) has said that absconding jeweller Mehul Choksi diverted over 3,250 crore rupees, amassed by defrauding Punjab National Bank, to foreign countries. ED said funds obtained from PNB's Brady House branch in Mumbai, were diverted to countries like Thailand, the US, Belgium, UAE, Italy, Japan and Hong Kong.

In its charge sheet, ED said, these funds were fraudulently obtained by Choksi and his firms from the PNB by way of Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) and Foreign Letters of Credit (FLCs). Choksi diverted about 400 crore rupees of loan funds to his



nephew Nirav Modi and about 360 crore rupees to Nirav's father Deepak Modi.

The agency, which is probing the 13,000 crore rupees PNB scam, said Choksi used several dummy companies to rotate funds and to divert money for his personal use. The ED's investigations also found that Choksi was in the business of highly inflating prices of precious metals sold from his outlets. He has been doing this to project inflated turnover to avail higher banking facility.  Choksi, talking to some media organisations, has termed ED's allegations as "false and baseless".