The Nirav Modi who in October 2016, opened his jewellery store in London’s Old Bond Street, in what appeared, at the time, to be the latest step in a rapid and seemingly inexorable rise to the summit of the luxury goods market, struck an assured, and self-confident figure.

Standing beside the actress and model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, the ‘face’ of the Modi brand, he smiled for the assembled photographers, as members of the press and invited guests moved among the display cases, champagne glasses in hand, admiring Modi’s collections of diamond necklaces, bracelets and earring, some of it bearing price tags up to £300,000.

The Nirav Modi, who on Thursday emerged from an office building in Soho…