CBI names Ex IAF chief and ten others in chopper deal PE

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday registered a Preliminary Enquiry into the Rs. 3760 Crore VVIP chopper deal scam. CBI has named eleven individuals including former IAF chief SP Tyagi and his cousins for receiving kickbacks to swing the deal in AgustaWestland's favour.

A joint team of CBI and ministry of defence has returned from Italy on Friday and claims that investigators have got some credible documents to initiate the probe.

“We have named 11 persons and four companies, whose names have been surfaced during probe by Italian investigators. The probe report, submitted in a court in Milan after arresting Finmeccanica's former CEO Guiseppe Orsi, investigators have named some Indians for getting kickbacks. And former IAF chief and his cousins were named there in the report. Further investigation is on,”said a senior CBI official.

Eleven persons include--three cousins of former IAF Chief SP Tyagi--Julie, Dosca and Sandeep, Gautam Khaitan, Pravin Bakshi, Guisseppe Orsi, Bruno Spagnolini, Guido Haschke, Carlo Gerosa and Christian Michel along with four companies - Finmeccanica, AgustaWestland, Chandigarh based IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix.

“It is alleged that in the procurement process of the Helicopters, some middlemen have influenced the deal in favour of U.K based company. It is also alleged that Italy based company paid commission in terms of several millions of Euros to the middle men. The two middlemen from their share of commission allegedly paid huge sums of money to several Indian Nationals through Tunisia and Mauritius route in the garb of engineering contracts with two India based companies. The two middle men are directors in one of India based private companies, in which one private person works as Chief Operating Officer and he allegedly has a role in channelizing money for illegal purposes.,” CBI said in its official statement.