India’s diamond king Nirav Modi loses his sparkle

Jewellery baron Nirav Modi has become caught up in what may be the subcontinent’s biggest-ever financial scandal. It’s a huge fall from grace for a man who wanted to take on Cartier and Tiffany. Jane Lewis reports.

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Nirav Modi: "India's most celebrated jewellery baron"
(Image credit: 2018 Hindustan Times)

Over the past decade, Nirav Modi has become "India's most celebrated jewellery baron", says the Financial Times. His creations are favoured by Hollywood and Bollywood stars and the super-rich. "He was among an elite group of Indian business leaders who joined prime minister Narendra Modi [no relation] at last month's World Economic Forum in Davos." So it was a huge shock to India's establishment when his name was dragged into allegations of a fraud totalling up to $1.8bn at the Punjab National Bank (PNB) shortly after hisDavos appearance.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.