Mumbai, Aug 7 (PTI) A special court here today granted bail to Shyam Sunder Wadhwa, vice president of fugitive Nirav Modi's Firestar Group, in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam.

Wadhwa was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in March.

Special PMLA court judge M S Azmi granted him bail on a surety of Rs 1 lakh.

The ED had alleged that Wadhwa was a "close confidant" of Modi and was instrumental in setting up two companies in Hong Kong (Ms Aura Gem and Ms Sino Traders) with dummy directors.

These firms were used for laundering the proceeds of the PNB fraud, it had claimed.

The CBI had registered cases against Nirav Modi, his uncle and owner of Gitanjali Gems Mehul Choksi and several others including PNB officials for cheating the bank to the tune of USD 2 billion by obtaining Letters of Undertaking (LoU) fraudulently.

An LoU is a guarantee given by the issuing bank which is used to get credit from overseas banks.

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