Liquidator Offers Diamonds, Gold from Nirav Modi’s Firestar

Assets belonging to Nirav Modi’s former US-based Firestar Diamond business will go up for auction by the company’s appointed liquidators.

The assets on offer at the April 27 auction will include loose natural diamonds, gold, silver and platinum rings studded with natural and lab-grown diamonds, and other items India’s Directorate of Enforcement released recently, according to a LinkedIn post from the liquidator. The Gemmological Institute of India (GII) has certified all the items.

Firestar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2018, along with two US sister companies, A. Jaffe and Fantasy. The insolvency followed a freeze on the companies’ assets as the investigation into Nirav Modi’s defrauding of $1.8 billion from Punjab National Bank (PNB) intensified.

Paramount Jewels acquired A. Jaffe for $5.2 million later that year. Though the president of all three US brands, Mihir Bhansali, said in a court filing at the time that there was “strong” interest in Fantasy and Firestar, it later arose that the trustee responsible for liquidating their assets was suing Bhansali for transferring over $7 million in property to his wife “days” after the bankruptcy filing.

Meanwhile, a selection of jewelry and intellectual property belonging to Firestar and Fantasy was went up for auction at the JCK Las Vegas show in 2019.

Some of the pieces on sale at the April auction include three parcels of gold rings studded with natural diamonds weighing a total of 144.52, 125.16 and 206.57 carats, as well as 473 natural loose diamonds totaling 229.15 carats.

Image: Loose polished diamonds. (Shutterstock)