Fake Hong Kong diamonds by Nirav Modi cost me US$200,000 – and my fiancée

Spare a thought for Paul Alfonso. Rich and in love, he bought two diamonds in Hong Kong from the master jeweller suspected of the biggest bank fraud in Indian history. After all, he thought: this was Nirav, what could go wrong...

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Nirav Modi has become an international fugitive after fleeing India. Photo: Felix Wong

Published: 8:00am, 7 Oct 2018Updated: 11:32am, 9 Oct 2018

In JuLY this year, Paul Alfonso and his girlfriend drove to Vancouver’s Stanley Park after dinner at Chang’An, a Chinese fine-dining restaurant known for its Peking duck.

It was a quiet and warm night, one that invited a walk outside. Alfonso, 36, pulled over by the Brockton Point Lighthouse, while he mustered the courage to ask a question that would change both their lives – but not in the way he expected.

“I was so nervous. After chatting for about 10 minutes, I took the ring out and proposed to her … She was in shock,” he recalls. But the answer was “yes”.

The ring had been bought from Nirav Modi, a famous diamond jewellery designer whose pieces have been used by an array of Hollywood stars, including Kate Winslet and Dakota Johnson – and the man who, unbeknownst to Alfonso, was at the centre of the largest fraud in Indian banking history.

Alfonso, a Canadian national, is the chief executive of a payment processing company who splits his time between Vancouver and California. He met Modi at the centennial celebrations for the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel in 2012. A few months later they ran into each other at an event in Malibu, then dined at the Mandarin Oriental in New York the following week.

“He told me his plans about opening different Nirav Modi boutiques all around the world,” Alfonso says. “I am about 10 years younger, so he pretty much gave me a pep talk, kind of an older brother figure … He told me how he worked his way up and so on.”

Modi was born into a diamond-trading family, but had gone on to carve a glittering career for himself. He founded Firestar Diamond in 1999, first dealing in loose diamonds and later manufacturing jewellery for retailers around the world. In 2010, he started trading under his eponymous brand, opening shops in New York, London, Hong Kong and Macau.