Nirav Modi

• Nirav Deepak Modi (born 27 February 1971) is a fugitive Indian businessman, wanted by the Interpol for criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating and dishonesty including delivery of property, corruption, money laundering, fraud, embezzlement and breach of contract since August 2018.

•  Modi made international headlines again in early October 2018 when Los Angeles entrepreneur, Paul Alfonso, filed a US$4.2 million lawsuit in Los Angeles against Modi and two of his now defunct companies namely Firestar Diamond Inc. and A. Jaffe Inc. According to court records from the Superior Court of California, Modi fraudulently sold two custom diamond engagement rings to Alfonso that turned out to be lab diamonds. The value of both diamond rings were US$200,000.

•  Modi's younger brother Neeshal Deepak Modi and manager and close aide Parab Subhash Shankhar are also wanted by Interpol since August 2018 in connection with the same crimes as Nirav Modi.

Early life

• Nirav Modi was born in Palanpur, Gujarat, and grew up in Antwerp, Belgium. His family has been in the diamond business for several generations. When he was 19, he and his father Deepak Modi moved to Mumbai to work in his uncle's business, Mehul Choksi, the head of Gitanjali Group, a retail jewellery company with 4,000 stores in India.

Career

• After moving to India in 1989, and training in all aspects of the diamond trading business, he founded Firestar in 1999 (Formerly known as Firestone), a diamond sourcing and trading company. Firestar is the exclusive distributor of Rio Tinto’s Argyle pink diamonds in India.

• In 2002, his company started manufacturing jewellery on a contract basis. He acquired Frederick Goldman in 2005, and Sandberg & Sikorski and A.Jaffe in 2007 in the USA.