VVIP choppers case: ED attaches fresh assets of absconding businessman Shravan Gupta

New Delhi: The ED on Monday said it has attached a land and farmhouse in Delhi worth more than Rs 16 crore of Shravan Gupta, a former managing director of realty major Emmar MGF, in connection with its ongoing money laundering investigation into the alleged over Rs 3,600-crore VVIP choppers purchase scam case.

A charge sheet was filed against the businessman in this case and extradition proceedings against him are underway after he fled the country in November 2019, the central agency said in a statement.

The ED said, "Gupta received proceeds of crime in companies like Natille Overseas Inc, Switzerland, Timekeeper Ltd, British Virgin Islands, Hall Park Holdings Limited, United Kingdom etc which are beneficially owned by him."

"The proceeds of crime were received from a shell company based out of Mauritius which had received the kickbacks in the defence deal from Agusta Spa, Italy," it said.

On January 1, 2014, India scrapped the contract with Finmeccanica's British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of kickbacks to the tune of Rs 423 crore paid by the firm for securing the deal.

The agency had registered a money laundering case in 2014, taking cognisance of a CBI FIR.

A probe found, the ED said, that kickbacks amounting to Euro 70 million were paid by AgustaWestland for influencing the deal of supply of 12 VVIP choppers in its favour and for subsequent payment of bribes to the officials of the Indian Air Force, bureaucrats and politically exposed persons through a complex web of transactions.

The integrity pact in the tender documents for the procurement of the VVIP helicopters forbade engaging any middlemen and paying of kickbacks in any form for a favourable decision, it said.

Complex structures were used to launder the kickbacks through a maze of companies across a number of countries like Tunisia, Mauritius, UK, Switzerland, BVI and UAE, it said.

"AgustaWestland paid kickbacks to the tune of €28 million to the companies of foreign nationals Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa in India and Tunisia on the pretext of engineering contracts."

"The Tunisian company of Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa signed sham consultancy agreements to transfer the kickbacks to the tune of Euro 12.4 million to company in Mauritius which transferred and routed the kickbacks to intended beneficiaries including the companies beneficially owned by Shravan Gupta," it said.

The agency has filed a dozen charge sheets in this case and attached assets worth Rs 110 crore till now.