A special court on Tuesday granted the CBI custody of Subhash Shankar Parab, a close confidante of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, till April 26 in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) multi–crore fraud.
Mr. Parab was arrested by the CBI and brought to Mumbai from Cairo on Tuesday morning. He was looking after the banking related activities of Mr. Modi’s companies namely M/s Diamond R US, M/s Solar Exports and M/s Stellar Diamonds. He was also the deputy general manager (operations) in M/s Firestar International Private Limited from April, 2015 till the registration of this case.
As per the CBI, “He had the knowledge that the three firms did not have any credit facilities with PNB and were not providing 100% cash margin for issuance of fraudulent letters of undertaking [LoUs].” The Central agency sought his custody for 14 days alleging that he was also instrumental in handling financials of six Hong Kong–based and 13 Dubai–based dummy companies floated by Mr. Modi, causing a loss of ₹6,498.20 crore to the PNB. He fled the country on January 1, 2018 before the scam broke out. An open non–bailable warrant and a red corner notice had been issued against him.
