US court dismisses plea to quash charges against Nirav Modi

The allegations were made in a New York court by Richard Levine, the court appointed trustees of three American corporations—Firestar Diamond, Fantasy Inc. and A Jaffa—indirectly previously owned by 50-year-old Modi.

Levin also sought a minimum compensation of $1.5 million for “losses” caused to debtors of Nirav Modi and his associates Mihir Bhansali and Ajay Gandhi.

Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court Judge Sean H. Lane issued the order last Friday, in a major setback to the Indian fugitive and his accomplices. Nirav Modi, who is currently lodged in a UK jail, is challenging India’s efforts to extradite him to face charges of fraud and money laundering in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case.

“SDNY Bankruptcy Court Judge Lane in a clear judgment dismissed the motions of defendants Modi, Bansali and Gandhi, dismissing the amended complaint of US Trustee Richard Levine in adverse proceedings arising out of Modi’s initial Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition. was charged with fraud, breach of fiduciary duties, Ricoh and relevant state law claims,” ​​said Indian American lawyer Ravi Batra.

Elaborating on the 60-page order, Batra said Modi overtook Crazy Eddie (Ed Gap), the founder of an American electronics retail chain, who sought extra money to unfairly inflate the stock price/valuation of the company. Invested his profits back in the form of sales to his company. Establishing a scheme to defraud PNB and other banks to the tune of over $1 billion by a “shell game”, where the ball gets bigger with each sleight of hand, and then sends PNB a letter of undertaking (a guarantee). kind) and get loans. at the value of the inflated ball.

Batra said on the basis of court papers, “But in order to obtain funds wrongly received from their companies by bank fraud, they indulged in a separate fraud to conceal those withdrawals for personal gain, as if they were were normal business transactions.”