Nirav Modi’s associate deported from UAE in PNB fraud case, sent to jail custody

Mumbai: CBI deported Sandeep Mistry, a close associate of

Nirav Modi, from the UAE in connection with the Rs 6,498 crore

Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case on Monday. The agency produced him before a court in Mumbai on Tueaday and the court remanded him to jail custody.

CBI had submitted a chargesheet against Mistry along with Nirav in the case in 2019. In July, Interpol issued a red notice based on which he was arrested in the UAE and deported to India.

CBI told the court that after registration of the case, Mistry, in association with another accused, Mihir Bhansali, was involved in coordinating with the persons shown as directors of the Dubai-based dummy companies and acted as an intermediary in arranging meetings and communications with them. Bhansali conveyed the instructions concerning the continued association/replacement of the dummy directors and specifically instructed Sandeep Mistry to identify new persons in their place.

Mistry allegedly acted as a key link between various entities and was working closely with Nirav Modi. He was overseeing their day-to-day operations and issuing instructions through clandestine, self-deleting communication platforms to conceal evidence, said CBI.

CBI further added that Mistry also allegedly facilitated the preparation of forged import-export documents to create the appearance of fictitious trade in diamonds, gold and pearl jewellery.

CBI alleged that Mistry along with the other accused had coerced other dummy directors of foreign companies by threatening them with arrest, relocating them to other places, seizing their electronic devices and compelling them to sign documents falsely portraying them as genuine owners of the companies. He has also participated in siphoning off funds from the bank accounts of dummy companies in the UAE, said CBI.

In 2018-19, Enforcement Directorate (ED), which was investigating a money laundering case against Nirav and others, had persuaded Mistry to provide it with a copy of messages from self-deleting communication platforms, as he had kept printouts of those messages, and bank account records of Nirav’s associates, which helped the agency to link Nirav’s sister Purvi Modi and his brother-in-law Maiank Mehta to the case. ED has been persuading Mistry to return to India along with other dummy directors. Initially, he agreed but afterwards changed his mind. On ED’s persuasion, all 13 dummy directors returned to India except Mistry and one other accused. These documents are part of the ED chargesheet against Nirav Modi.