In early 2018, the implosion of Nirav Modi’s Firestar Diamonds International, on its way to becoming India’s first truly global luxury company, threw the country’s diamond industry and its banking system into utter disarray. Allegations against Modi, of defrauding banks to the tune of US$1.8 billion, brought a whole business community under scrutiny and escalated rapidly into an international scandal.
Based on personal encounters, incisive interviews and meticulous research, this riveting narrative exposes the incredible twists and turns of the Nirav Modi story – of a third-generation diamantaire who moved from Belgium to India to apprentice with his uncle, Mehul Choksi, an established diamond merchant with extensive connections; of an astute businessman whose firm grip over an intercontinental supply chain saw his branded jewellery stores dotting not just every Indian metropolis but also marquee locations such as London, New York and Hong Kong; and of a reclusive, inscrutable man with a penchant for the high life that possibly led him to fly too close to the sun.
As the Nirav Modi saga – complete with his arrest on international soil, rejected bail pleas, extradition theatrics and the frenzied pursuit of diamond-trading minutiae by investigative agencies across three nations – continues to make headlines, Flawed recounts in close, compelling detail the rise of a global player and his equally dramatic fall. Arresting and revelatory, it raises indispensable questions about how one man’s drive to succeed at all costs can jeopardize an entire ecosystem.