The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is set to widen its probe as it is looking into at least a dozen of Swiss bank accounts allegedly linked to Rajeev Saxena and suspected kickbacks paid in deals linked to national carrier Air India where Deepak Talwar is a suspect, official sources said Thursday.
They said the ED will now confront 61-year-old Saxena, a Dubai-based businessman, with Gautam Khaitan to unravel the trail of alleged slush funds and kickbacks paid in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP choppers purchase case.
While Delhi-based lawyer Khaitan has been arrested in this case earlier and he later obtained bail, he was last week again arrested by the central probe agency in a new criminal case of possession of alleged black money.
The agency, in the past, has charged Saxena of being "in collusion" with Khaitan.
Sources said that Saxena, a resident of Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, will also be confronted with Christian Michel, the alleged British-origin middleman extradited by India recently in the same case.
A dozen bank accounts located in Switzerland are under the scanner of the agency and it is suspected that Saxena operated them and that a good amount of kickbacks of the helicopters deal could have been parked there, they said.
The agency, sources said, has got a "prize catch" in the form of Talwar (60), whom it suspects to have laundered about Rs 100 crore kickbacks that were sent to bank accounts of an NGO linked to him in India, in connection with sale of Airbus planes to erstwhile Indian Airlines, which was later merged with Air India.
The CBI and the ED are already probing the case, under criminal sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), for alleged irregularities in over Rs 8,000-crore deal for supplying 43 aircraft of the French company to erstwhile Indian Airlines in 2005.
He is also under the scanner for his alleged role in lobbying for certain foreign airlines in a deal related to sharing of profit-making routes of Air India.
01/02/19 PTI/DNA
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
They said the ED will now confront 61-year-old Saxena, a Dubai-based businessman, with Gautam Khaitan to unravel the trail of alleged slush funds and kickbacks paid in the Rs 3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP choppers purchase case.
While Delhi-based lawyer Khaitan has been arrested in this case earlier and he later obtained bail, he was last week again arrested by the central probe agency in a new criminal case of possession of alleged black money.
The agency, in the past, has charged Saxena of being "in collusion" with Khaitan.
Sources said that Saxena, a resident of Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, will also be confronted with Christian Michel, the alleged British-origin middleman extradited by India recently in the same case.
A dozen bank accounts located in Switzerland are under the scanner of the agency and it is suspected that Saxena operated them and that a good amount of kickbacks of the helicopters deal could have been parked there, they said.
The agency, sources said, has got a "prize catch" in the form of Talwar (60), whom it suspects to have laundered about Rs 100 crore kickbacks that were sent to bank accounts of an NGO linked to him in India, in connection with sale of Airbus planes to erstwhile Indian Airlines, which was later merged with Air India.
The CBI and the ED are already probing the case, under criminal sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), for alleged irregularities in over Rs 8,000-crore deal for supplying 43 aircraft of the French company to erstwhile Indian Airlines in 2005.
He is also under the scanner for his alleged role in lobbying for certain foreign airlines in a deal related to sharing of profit-making routes of Air India.
01/02/19 PTI/DNA
0 comments:
Post a Comment