CBI investigates new Mehul Choksi loan as part of wider fraud case

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Apr 12, 2018

On April 11, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) made investigations into another suspicious loan totalling 5,280 crore rupees (approximately 793.7million US dollars) taken by out by the jeweller Mehul Choksi.

Mehul Choksi, implicated in India’s largest bank fraud case to date along with his nephew Nirav Modi, has been investigated yet again for a loan he took from a consortium of 31 banks. The consortium was led by ICICI Bank which also has exposure to other loans in the wider fraud investigation involving the Punjab National Bank (PNB).

The probe is part of the existing First Information Report (FIR) that as filed against both Choksi and Modi but the CBI has clarified that the loan is a different one to the one relating to the PNB. If the loan is declared fraudulent, this would further increase the total sum attributed to Choksi and Modi, which is currently over 13,000 crore rupees (approximately two billion US dollars).

The CBI also recently questioned two officials at the Bahrain branch of Canara Bank and one official from the Bank of India based in Antwerp, Belgium, according to the news agency ANI. This is part of the agency’s mission to find out more information about the duo’s foreign assets and to ascertain whether they can be charged under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).