CBI issues LRs to Tunisia, Singapore in chopper scam

The CBI has issued letters rogatory (LRs) to Tunisia and Singapore in a bid to establish the money trail in the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP chopper scam involving AgustaWestland, which rocked the defence establishment.

The CBI move comes soon after an Italian court allowed sharing of prosecution documents with Indian investigators regarding the deal in which top officials of AgustaWestland were accused of bribing Indian defence and military officials.

The agency needs to ascertain the money trail on the basis of the documents. It issued the LRs to ensure evidentiary value while the case is heard in Indian courts. Courts would not admit evidence from foreign countries obtained through unofficial routes.

A letter rogatory is issued by a court on an application by an investigating officer to obtain evidence outside India to a court or other authorities in a foreign country seeking evidence.

Investigations are on in India and Italy following corruption charges against the top executives of UK-based AgustaWestland and its parent company, Italy-headquartered Finmeccanica, in securing a deal for supplying 12 helicopters to India.

The CBI has already filed a case against former air chief S P Tyagi, his cousins Sandeep, Juli and Docsa and seven others, including Swiss nationals Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa. It is alleged that the accused conspired to change specifications for the choppers so that AgustaWestland could win the contract. They allegedly paid kickbacks of around Rs 362 crore.

The CBI sources said they were yet to gather evidence against the former air chief. Names of no political leaders have cropped up in the case so far. The agency, in its FIR, alleged that Haschke used his Tunisia-based company to enter into several consultancy contracts with AgustaWestland from 2004-05, besides entering into contracts with the cousins of the former air chief.

The investigators have managed to unearth the trail of about $ 5 million allegedly paid as bribe, while it is yet to ascertain the flow of about $ 23 million.  Sources said the money could have been stashed in Tunisia and Singapore. Hence, collecting evidence from these countries through an official channel was important.

The LRs would seek information pertaining to financial transactions and ownership details of the firms. 

The CBI suspected that two Indian firms used middlemen and the bribe was masked as payments towards engineering contracts.