Indian newspapers are reporting that one of its nationals involved in a financial scam is in Basseterre to seek St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship.The Government of India on Friday revoked the Indian passport of the disgraced diamond czar moved all assets of Nirav Modi and on Saturday moved to attach all the assets in the Punjab National Bank fraud.According to newspapers in India, St. Kitts and Nevis has become the perfect place for Nirav Modi to stay as it does not have an extradition treaty with India.
“The disgraced diamond czar Nirav Modi and has family have moved to his new hideout, St. Kitts, located in the eastern Caribbean, according to a report in Mumbai Mirror.Sources in the diamond trading communities of Mumbai and Surat said that the 48-year-old diamantaire has also bought a villa at St Kitts, which is helping him in acquiring citizenship of the Caribbean island nation.
“He has been planning this for a while now. In fact, he visited St. Kitts along with his family last week,” a source revealed to Mumbai Mirror.“Now that his passport has been revoked by the MEA, he will set up another diamond trading unit in either Singapore or Hong Kong,” another source said.“He can do this and continue to evade Indian authorities, because neither of these countries will extradite him, since he will be a St. Kitts citizen soon,” he added.
Modi and others are being investigated by multiple probe agencies after the fraud came to light recently following a complaint by the Punjab National Bank. The complaint alleged that they cheated the nationalised bank to the tune of Rs 11,400 crore, with the purported involvement of a few employees of the bank.Nirav along with his wife Ami, brother Neeshal and Mehul Choksi left India in the first week of January before the Punjab National Bank accused them of committing the fraud. They have not returned to India since then.
Meanwhile a press release coming from the office of Prime Minister Harris on Monday states: “It has come to the attention of the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis that media reports out of India are promulgating the false claim that Nirav Modi, his wife, Ami, and his uncle, Mehul Choksi, have applied for economic citizenship in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
The Government of St. Kitts and Nevis repudiates this allegation and states on the record that Mr. Modi is not a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis, and neither are his wife and uncle. Furthermore, Citizenship by Investment (CBI) record checks confirm that no applications have been made by or on behalf of these individuals.Immigration records also indicate that none of these persons has entered any port in St. Kitts and Nevis.
An Interpol report dated February 15th, 2018 does not list St. Kitts and Nevis anywhere as a country likely to be visited by these individuals.Upon assuming office in February 2015 after a decisive electoral victory, Prime Minister Harris’ administration employed IPSA International, a regulatory risk mitigation company, to complete a comprehensive overhaul of the Citizenship by Investment Programme.
The new order has resulted in a multi-layered programme of due diligence that makes it one of the most robust and well regulated in the region.
The CBI programme does a broad check of media and criminal databases, as well as sanctions lists, and makes a determination whether there are serious or pending legal, regulatory or political matters that would require consideration before any application is approved.
The successful reforms engineered by St. Kitts and Nevis have been rewarded by the CBI industry, which recognizes it as the platinum brand. Moreover, St. Kitts and Nevis’ CBI Programme continues to be the leading programme in the Caribbean, having achieved the number one ranking in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) in a January 2018 quality of passport index survey administered by Henley & Partners, a global citizenship and residence advisory firm.