The US$1.8b Indian bank fraud that went unnoticed

New Delhi

THE Punjab National Bank branch in south Mumbai sits just down the road from both the Bombay Stock Exchange and the Reserve Bank of India, at a physical centre of one of the world's fastest growing major economies.

The branch, clad in a stately colonial edifice, is now also at the heart of a fraud case linked to billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi that has shaken confidence in a state banking sector that accounts for some 70 per cent of India's banking assets.

It was here, according to…