Soon after Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi – both related and protagonists in the PNB saga – hit the headlines, a letter by Bengaluru-based businessman Hari Prasad to the Prime Minister’s Office started doing the rounds. In this letter, written in 2016, Prasad spoke of a scam “similar to that of Vijay Mallya”. He alleged that Choksi had “siphoned off thousands of crores out of India.” He went on to state that despite “very small tangible assets – just Rs 25-30 crore”, Choksi was able to get loans to the tune of Rs 9,872 crore. Explaining how Choksi was able to pull this off, Prasad alleged that it was possible because of “fictitious balance sheets” consisting of “manipulated and inflated figures” that showed a large portion of his assets as “inventories and trade receivable”.