New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached properties worth ₹16.57 crore belonging to businessman Shravan Gupta in its probe into the VVIP chopper scam, alleging that managing director of the realty firm, MGF, had received proceeds of crime in the ₹3,727 crore deal, the agency said on Monday.
Gupta, currently the head of MGF, had allegedly fled from India in November 2019 and extradition proceedings against him are already underway, it said. He reportedly runs MGF from Dubai.
“ED has provisionally attached immovable properties worth ₹16.57 crore belonging to Shravan Gupta, an accused in theVVIP chopper scam case. T AgustaWestland he properties attached are in the form of land/farmhouse (s) located in a posh area of Delhi. ED had earlier attached properties amounting to ₹4.05 crore belonging to Gupta and his wife in 2022,” the agency said in a statement.
Gupta, the ED statement added, received proceeds of crime in several companies “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 added.
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The federal agency has already filed a charge sheet against Gupta in the case in February 2022.
“Presently, extradition proceedings against Gupta are underway as he fled the country in November 2019,” ED statement said.
The company denied any involvement in the case.
“We wish to state that this matter is sub judice and Mr Gupta has no involvement in the said case . This attachment is also illegal and the same will be challenged in the appropriate court . Mr Gupta has been a non resident Indian since 2016,” it said in a statement.
ED is probing the United Progressive Alliance UPA-era scam based on a parallel corruption probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which alleges irregularities in the purchase of 12 VVIP choppers from Italy-based Finmeccanica’s British subsidiary AgustaWestland. The deal was scrapped by India in 2014.
The money laundering probe has revealed that kickbacks amounting to euro 70 million were paid by AgustaWestland “for influencing the deal in its favour and for subsequent payment of bribes to the officials of the Indian Air Force, bureaucrats and politically exposed persons (PEPs) through a complex web of transactions”, ED said on Monday.
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“The integrity pact in the tender documents for the procurement of the VVIP helicopters forbade engaging of any middlemen and paying of kickbacks in any form for a favourable decision. Complex structures of money laundering were used to launder the kickbacks through a maze of companies across a number of countries like Tunisia, Mauritius, UK, Switzerland, British Virgin Islands and the UAE,” it said.
The agency further said that AgustaWestland paid kickbacks worth euro 28 million to the middlemen – Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa in India and Tunisia on the pretext of engineering contracts. Further, the Tunisian company of Haschke and 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”.
ED has filed 12 charge sheets in the case and has attached properties worth ₹110 crore.
