Billionaire Jeweller's Uncle Refuses To Join India Bank Fraud Probe

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Billionaire jeweller's uncle refuses to join India bank fraud probe

India's billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi's business partner and uncle Mehul Choksi refused to join the probe in the country's biggest-ever bank fraud of 1.8 billion US dollars, sources told Xinhua on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Mar, 2018 ) ::India's billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi's business partner and uncle Mehul Choksi refused to join the probe in the country's biggest-ever bank fraud of 1.8 billion US dollars, sources told Xinhua on Tuesday.

In a letter to India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Choksi said that he is abroad and unable to return to join the probe as his passport "remains suspended" as well as due to his "persisting health condition".

CBI has summoned both Modi and his uncle Choksi to join the probe and has sought Interpol's help to track them down after India's External Affairs Ministry revoked their passports. Modi is said to have defrauded Punjab National Bank, India's second largest state-run bank, of 1.

8 billion US dollars, though he claimed that he owed the bank only 775 million US Dollars in a letter sent to the bank's management.

Indian investigators have so far arrested nearly 20 people, including some senior executives of the companies owned by Modi and Choksi as well as high-ranking officials of state-owned Punjab National Bank in the fraud probe.

However, they have not been able to arrest Modi and his uncle yet. The celebrity jeweller is said to have fled the country and was reportedly last seen in New York after his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos as a member of the Indian delegation.