Money Routed To India Via Tunisian Firm
New Delhi: AgustaWestland, the British helicopter maker, took cover behind India’s software exports to route funds it allegedly paid as kickbacks in the Rs 3,546 crore VVIP chopper deal.
The company, a subsidiary of Italian defence and aerospace firm Finmeccanica, routed up to 20 million euro (around Rs 144 crore) in the deal signed in 2010 via Tunisia. The remittances were shown as payments for software developed in India, perhaps because the company reckoned that the transfers would not attract suspicion given the large volume of exports. Software exports are likely to cross $75 billion this year.
THE KICKBACK TRAIL
- Size of AgustaWestland (AW) deal for supply of 12 choppers: €556 million ( 3,546 crore)
- Total kickbacks of €51m suspected, according to documents submitted in Italian court.
- €30m paid to UK-based alleged middleman Christian Michel for payments to Italian politicians
- AW sent at least €21m to India via Tunisia between 2007 and 2011.
- These monthly payments of €510,000 made in the name of fake engineering contracts routed through Tunisian firm, IDS Tunisia.
- IDS India received these ‘sums of money in order to pay public officials’ in India, say Italian documents.
- €100,000 allegedly paid in cash to Tyagi brothers — Juli, Docsa and Sandeep — cousins of former IAF chief S P Tyagi.
Payments to Agusta put on hold
The government on Wednesday put on hold all further payments to AgustaWestland in a bid to contain the political fallout from the latest scam to have hit UPA-2. The Centre has paid over 50% of the total amount of Rs 3,546 crore, and a fresh tranche was to be released this month. Sources said the government has not decided on stopping the delivery of the remaining nine copters, expected in March.P 9 Report: Ex-IAF chief modified tender
The payments started sometime in 2007, or earlier, and went on until last year, when investigators began trailing the kickbacks. Of these payments, at least 100,000 euros was paid to the three Tyagi brothers—Juli, Docsa and Sandeep—cousins of former IAF chief S P Tyagi when he was in office.
According to the documents filed in an Italian court, AgustaWestland CEO Bruno Spagnoli and Guido Ralph Haschke, one of the key middlemen and a former director of real estate firm Emaar MGF, signed a consulting contract between the UK-based helicopter company and a firm called ‘Gordian Services Sari’ worth 400,000 euro. Of this, 100,000 euro was paid to the Tyagi brothers in cash.
Later, engineering contracts were signed involving IDS Tunisia and IDS India—two firms that figure prominently in the probe—to pay “sums of money in order to pay public officials” in India, the documents show. In 2007, 640,000 euro was paid into IDS India “using invoices issued by IDS India, for non-existent operations,” say the court documents.
In 2008, this amount was 1.3 million euro. In the same year, there may have been another payment of 977,263 euro. In the declarations for 2009, there is an entry of 508,000 euro payment to IDS India. In 2011, a payment of almost 6.4 million euro was detected.
The report accuses the Tyagi brothers of influencing their cousin – IAF chief Tyagi - for modifying the tender in favour of AgustaWestland, reducing the operating height from 18,000 feet to 15,000 feet and introducing a comparative flight with an engine failure. AgustaWestland’s threeengine helicopter benefited from this particular trial procedure, the court filings show.
"I have met Carlo (middleman) at my cousins’ place but have no contact with him... The deal was signed in 2010 whereas I retired in 2007... Staff qualitative requirements for the choppers were frozen in 2003, much before I assumed office of Chief of Air Staff." — SP TYAGI, FORMER IAF CHIEF
COURTESY:
Josy Joseph TNN
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