His name is Jatin Mehta.
He ran a diamond and jewellery empire. His flagship company was called Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery, along with a sister firm, Forever Precious.
For years, they were among the larger names in India’s gold and diamond trade.
The way the business was funded is the heart of the story.
Around 2008, a group of Indian banks arranged for large quantities of gold to be supplied to his companies by international bullion banks. The Indian banks acted as guarantors.
The arrangement was simple.
If Mehta’s companies failed to pay the foreign suppliers for the gold, the Indian banks would have to step in and pay instead.
Much of that money ultimately came from public sector banks, funded by ordinary depositors.
By 2013, his companies stopped paying.
The default amounted to around seven thousand crore rupees.
When the banks asked where the money had gone, Mehta’s side said that thirteen overseas buyers in the UAE had failed to pay him and that he had simply passed the losses on.
Investigators later alleged something very different.
They claimed the buyers were not independent companies at all, but part of a network of shell entities linked to interests controlled by the Mehta family. They further alleged that funds had been routed through multiple countries.
By the time agencies in India moved, Jatin Mehta and his family had already left the country.
In 2014, he acquired citizenship of the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis.
Indian agencies later declared him a wilful defaulter and a fugitive economic offender. Cases were filed and properties were attached.
Very little of the money has ever been recovered.
Years later, a court in the United Kingdom froze assets worth close to a billion dollars linked to the family, stating there was strong evidence of fraud.
The family denies any wrongdoing.
Jatin Mehta is often mentioned alongside Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi as one of the businessmen who left India owing banks thousands of crores.
His name is simply the least famous of the three.
Follow for verified stories every Indian deserves to know.