Fire Star Diamond's President Vipul Ambani held by CBI in Modi fraud case

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Feb 21, 2018

In the most recent development in and first arrests of the Nirav Modi and Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud investigation, Fire Star Diamond's President Vipul Ambani has been apprehended by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

On February 21, the CBI arrested Vipul Ambani who is the President of Fire Star Diamond, the diamond business owned by Nirav Modi who is suspected of committing fraud against the PNB. Four other senior executives connected to the case were also arrested.

Fire Star Diamond’s Executive Assistant Kavita Mankikar and Senior Executive Arjun Patil were arrested along with Ambani in connection to the First Information Report (FIR) issued by the CBI concerning 150 suspected Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) worth Rs 6,498 crore. A LoU is a guarantee issued by a bank to Indian banks with international branches to give credit to the applicant on a short term basis. The bank that issued the LoU is liable to pay any defaulted loans to the bank that gave the credit and it is suspected that the concerned LoUs were obtained fraudulently.

Kapil Khandelwal, the CFO of Nakshatra group and Gitanjali group and Niten Shahi, the Manager of Gitanjali group, were arrested in connection with the CBI’s second FIR that was registered on February 15 against Gitanjali Gems’ Mehul Choksi. They will also await questioning.

The main suspect in the case, Nirav Modi, has not been arrested as yet as he, along with his wife, brother, and uncle Choksi, left India during the first week of January. All four have been named as accused in the case in the FIR and will be arrested if apprehended.