Nirav Modi Scam: All That Glitters...

Nirav Modi seemed to possess the Midas touch. In just five years, he built for his eponymous brand an international reputation for quality that was the envy of the jewellery business. Until, of course, it all began to unravel...

- Prachi Bhuchar & Chumki Bharadwaj

On Delhi’s flyovers the billboards gleamed, much like the diamonds they advertised. Jeweller Nirav Modi used the best known faces, the likes of actor Priyanka Chopra and model Rosie Huntington Whiteley, for his eponymous brand, faces that represented the scale of his international ambition. He was an Indian jeweller who was intent on competing with Cartier, Harry Winston, and Van Cleef & Arpels. While the going was good, while Kate Winslet wore Nirav Modi jewels on the red carpet at the Oscars, while stores were being opened on Madison Avenue and Bond Street, in Hong Kong and Macau, Modi was celebrated—a corporate darling, a symbol of a new, confident, assertive country, ready to take its place at the international high table.

“He may have been a good designer,” says jewellery designer Farah Khan, “but no one was asking where he was getting all that money from to set up so many stores.” Model Amanpreet Wahi recalls the launch, in 2014, of his flagship store, the look created by Spanish designer Jaime Hayon, in south Delhi’s smart Defence Colony neighbourhood. “Everything was very luxurious,” she says, “and I remember talking to other models, asking ‘who is this guy who has so much money?’ It was like he had arrived overnight and no one knew where he had come from.” An old-time jeweller who wished to remain anonymous said, “Everyone in the fraternity wondered where his line of credit was coming from. Even heritage brands find it hard to launch successive stores given the sheer inventory of jewels needed. So how was he doing it on an international scale? Everyone has good ideas but you need money to back those ideas up and that was the biggest question mark when it came to Modi.”