AgustaWestland scam: UAE, UK, Mauritius refuse to share information

NEW DELHI: More than two years after it was expecting some headway in the multi-crore AgustaWestland scam, CBI probe has hit a sudden roadblock with some countries it had approached seeking clarifications.
Top sources told TOI that Mauritius, UAE and even United Kingdom have replied to CBI's letter rogatory (LRs or legal requests for assistance in probe) but have not shared any details of the money trail. Instead, more details of the CBI probe about the individuals and companies have been sought for them to be able to share anything.

CBI had approached several countries — Tunisia, Mauritius, Italy, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, United Kingdom, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates in its 'bribery' probe to the find the money trail in these countries or investments made from proceeds of crime there. CBI wrote to these countries seeking documents showing investments made by named persons in FIR, details of several companies, bank transactions and financial details of companies including AgustaWestland and IDS Tunisia.

It was suspected that Indian officials including former IAF chief SP Tyagi and others were paid Rs 362 crore kickbacks for securing the Rs 3,600 crore contract in favour of the Anglo-Italian firm through a web of companies and middlemen in these countries.

For the agency, it is important to find the money trail abroad to prove the criminal conspiracy and bribery charges. The "setback" is not good news for the anti-corruption agency since its probe in the scandal is already lingering for more than two years without any development in sight.

Earlier, during a couple of visits and through regular correspondence with ministry of defence and Indian embassy, Italy had provided all the details to CBI.

Agency officials say that "The kickbacks were paid through a complex web of companies. But the charges wouldn't stand in a court of law without positive and detailed replies from the countries from where transfers/investments were made".

In its FIR, while booking SP Tyagi, his cousins, European nationals and representatives of Finmeccanica and Indian consultants, CBI had claimed that close to 36 million euros had come to Indian companies and Tyagi cousins at different intervals in the garb of 'consultancy' and 'engineering' contracts.

It alleged that middleman Guido Haschke through his Tunisia-based company Gordian Services Sarl entered into several consultancy contracts with AgustaWestland from 2004-05 onwards, and "almost on back-to-back basis he also made consultancy contracts with the Tyagi brothers (Tyagi's cousins)." Under the cover of these contracts, Haschke allegedly sent 1.26 lakh euros and 2 lakh euros to Tyagi brothers.

"Besides these two remittances, Tyagi brothers also received some unquantified sum of money from the middlemen (Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa). The inflow of remittances to Tyagi brothers and softening of IAF's stand on service ceiling of the helicopter closely match in terms of time," officials claimed.

"Tyagi brothers claimed that they got this money as part of consultancy fee for a subsidiary of AgustaWestland and for another payment they claimed it was for engineering contract but their replies were not satisfactory during questioning and they couldn't justify it," said an official.

According to FIR, "Haschke and Gerosa managed to send 5.6 million euros through Mohali-based IDS Infotech and Chandigarh-based Aeromatrix Info Solutions to India and kept remaining amount out of about 24.30 million euros received from AgustaWestland with them in the account of IDS Tunisia. A portion of this amount was sent to India through Mauritius and Hawala route in order to pay kickbacks in India for swinging the VVIP helicopter deal in favour of AgustaWestland," the CBI FIR had alleged.

In total, Rs 362 crore bribe was paid to Indians for obtaining the contract.

CBI suspected that several countries like UAE and British Virgin Island were used for opening dummy companies for making the transfers.