Khaitan, who is out on bail was first person to be arrested by Enforcement Directorate.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday said that advocate Gautam Khaitan, an accused in the Rs3,700 crore VVIP chopper scam has accepted of setting up shell companies that the probe agency says received huge amounts of kickbacks from aerospace and defence group, AgustaWestland. Khaitan was the first person to be arrested by Enforcement Directorate. The development comes even as the probe agency wrote to the ministry of external affairs to fast-track the process of issuing Letter Rogatory's in connection to the scam.
"Mr. Khaitan has accepted that he had set up shell companies in India before the AugustaWestland deal went through. Our investigations have revealed that the same companies were paid of money in huge amounts before and after the deal was sealed," said CBI sources.
Agency officials said that Khaitan during his questioning was confronted with records of the companies that he allegedly had set-up before 2010. Khaitan was called in for questioning by the CBI on the same day when agency sleuths interrogated former Indian Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi, who was subjected to his third round of questioning on Wednesday.
Former Air Chief Marshal Tyagi is accused of influencing IAF's decision to tailor chopper specification to suit helicopters put for bidding by AgustaWestland. The service ceiling (height of flying capacity) was brought down from 6,000 metres to 4,500 metres, even after reluctance by the ministry of Defence.
Elaborating on the role of Khaitan, CBI officials said that advocates alleged role started when Bruno Spagnolini, CEO AugustaWestland started paying payoffs to middlemen Guido Ralph Hashke and Carlo Gerosa through a Tunisia based consultancy named Gordon Services Sarl. It had been decided that if the Agusta deal was to go through, Gordon Services Sarl would be chosen as the main consultant.
Subsequently AgustaWestland payed 31 million euros to Christian Michel and 20 million euros to Hashke and Gerosa. Furthermore engineering contracts with Infotech India and IDS Tunisia, both accused companies in the same, were given. Agencies probe documents say 'the contracts were nothing but subterfuge to transact huge sums of kickbacks'.
For facilitating the transfer, Gautam Khaitan, legal advisory to IDS Infotech introduced middlemen to Satish Bagrodia and Partab K Aggarwal managing directors of IDS Infotech Ltd India. This firm received 2.166 million euro from Agusta between November 2007 to April 2010, investigation documents reveal. CBI investigation further revealed that another accused company, Aeromatrix Info Solution Ltd was incorporated to IDS Infotech.
Around 82% shares of Aeromatrix were held by Infotech Design System Mauritius and 17% by Khaitan. The agency said that IDS Tunisia raised bills amounting 24.37million euros on AgustaWestland but euro 1.88 million and euro 3.8 million were paid to IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix. IDS Tunisia inflated bills through fictitious invoices and money was brought to India through Mauritius by Khaitan through hawala route. Agency said Khaitan is to be questioned again on Thursday. Kaitan was granted bail by a Delhi court in January last year, three months after he was arrested by Enforcement Directorate.
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