NEW DELHI: When he opened his eponymous boutique at Marina Bay Sands last year, the Indian jeweller Nirav Modi was at the height of his success.

Hollywood stars such as Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet have donned his creations on the red carpet and Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra, star of American hit series Quantico, was his global brand ambassador.

He was well connected and just last month was included in a group photograph with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the country’s other top businessmen in Davos. The two are not related.

Now, the jeweller’s meteoric rise has been matched by his fall from grace.

Late last month, the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) began probing the 47-year-old’s involvement in what could potentially be the biggest bank fraud case in India.

CBI officers are looking into how credit amounting to about $1.8 billion was fraudulently acquired from state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) for over seven years by companies belonging to Mr Modi as well as his uncle Mehul Choksi.

At least a dozen people, six from the bank and six more from firms run by the two men, have been arrested so far.

The authorities have raided Mr Modi’s home as well as offices, and seized a number of his luxury cars, including a Rolls-Royce and a Porsche.

The CBI has approached Interpol to locate the jeweller, who left India on Jan 1 and has not been seen since.

But Mr Modi, in a Feb 16 letter to PNB, denied all the allegations swirling around him.

“The matter is being described as India’s largest banking fraud. This is far from the truth. Nirav Modi Group ran a legitimate luxury brand business and the brand had become India’s foremost global luxury brand, standing side by side with some of the biggest jewellery brands in the world,” he wrote in the letter published in the Indian media.

He added: “Your (PNB) actions have destroyed my brand and the business and have now restricted your ability to recover all the dues leaving a trail of unpaid debts. Whatever may be the consequences I face for my actions, the haste was, in my humble submission, unwarranted.”

Mr Modi, who grew up in Antwerp, Belgium, comes from a family of diamond traders from Palanpur city in the state of Gujarat. His late grandfather Keshavlal Modi left Gujarat and moved to Singapore to set up a diamond trade business. From Singapore, he moved the family to Malaysia and then to Antwerp, the world’s largest diamond trading centre.

He went to University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School to study finance but left midway to work for his uncle, the owner of Gitanjali Gems, which is now also under investigation.

The Nirav Modi website describes how dinner conversations at his household revolved around the “four C’s” — cut, colour, clarity and carat.

After 10 years with his uncle, Mr Modi set up Firestar Diamond and in 2010 turned to designing jewellery. Over the past seven years, he successfully built up a luxury diamond empire with a string of outlets around the world, including in the United States and China. His company was said to be worth $2.3bn.

His creations featured in auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s catalogues, with one 88-carat diamond necklace selling for $8 million in Hong Kong in 2012, according to the Nirav Modi website.

A soft-spoken and small-built man, Mr Modi is married to Ami, an American citizen who is also under investigation. They have three children. He has denied that his wife and brother Neeshal, a Belgian national who is married to the niece of India’s richest man, are involved in the fraud.

Some in the trade, however, are not surprised by Mr Modi’s predicament because there have been whispers about the health of his business for some time.

“He was doing extremely well. But in the last three to four years there were murmurs that the group has overdrawn. This diamond trade is such that it takes you to heights or puts you down. Many people have gone from rich to poor,” said K K Sharma, former executive director of the Indian Diamond Institute.

Mr Modi, who once boasted of having a hundred outlets by 2025, has now seen his Indian stores, including the one in Chanakyapuri luxury mall in central Delhi, shuttered.

And Ms Chopra has cut off all ties to the brand.

The Straits Times/Singapore

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2018