How NiMo trumped NaMo’s demonetisation, reveals CNN-News18

At 8 pm on November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation and announced that ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes were to be invalid after midnight. The ‘demonetisation’ step, which was apparently to curb corruption and root out black money, had a lot of citizens running helter-skelter and standing in long queues to exchange their old notes, but not the diamond czar Nirav Modi, reported CNN-News18.

“The government has been claiming that demonetisation was a success, but there was someone who had mocked it,” CNN-News18 reported.

Having accessed an Income Tax Department report from May 2017, News 18 exposed the modus operandi of diamond czar Nirav Modi, who also happens to be among the prime accused in the PNB scam.

“Nirav Modi’s jewellery firm based in Hyderabad claimed that after 9 pm onwards (one hour after demonetisation was announced) on November 8, 2016, there were a number of people (around 52,000 customers) who had come to their jewellery firm to convert their cash into bullion,” the CNN-News18 report revealed, quoting the IT department report. “The reality is,” the report quoted the security guards of the mentioned building, “there was nobody who had come.”

“Nobody visited the premises on November 8 after 8 pm. What they had essentially supplied was back dated sales. The back dated sales, which they claim happened before demonetisation was announced, had in fact happened after demonetisation was announced,” CNN-News18 explosively revealed.

“All the transactions actually happened days after demonetisation, though they are claiming otherwise (from 9 pm onwards on November 8) but there are no details to showcase it. What they had done was that they had converted the entire details to back dating of sales, they had split the sale bills to avoid PAN reporting norms, providing entries through bogus sales. This is the way the entire modus operandi functioned,” the news channel explained.

Quoting sources, the report further claimed that the diamond czar “helped high profile clients exchange unaccounted cash worth ₹90 crore on a single day” after demonetisation was announced.

Although the IT report was filed in May 2017, no action has been initiated till the time of the CNN-News18 expose.

Upon being contacted, BJP leader RP Singh told CNN-News18, “This is a well-known fact that many jewellers converted money during demonetisation. Surprised that I-T Department did not take any action; agencies need to have better coordination.”

However, as CNN-News18 expose revealed, it was ‘NiMo’ who had ‘better coordination’ with his alleged ‘high profile clients’ and tasted all success in making a mockery of the government’s demonetisation move.