AgustaWestland scam: Enforcement Directorate team may go to Singapore on cash trail

NEW DELHI: A three-member team from Enforcement Directorate is likely to leave for Singapore in an effort to establish the money trail in the AgustaWestland scam.

According to sources, European and Indian middlemen -Carlo Gerosa, Guido Haschke and Gautam Khaitan used a large number of companies for bringing 24.6 million euros (approximately Rs 160 crore) from IDS Tunisia after receiving the same from the Italian subsidiary of AgustaWestland, to India.

One of the companies -Ms Interstellar PTA, based in Singapore was part of the process of routing the bribe money. The agency team, while in Singapore, will check the company records, bank transactions, details of ownersdirectors etc, said officials. The investigators suspect that Interstellar PTA could be linked to Interstellar Technologies, Mauritius, which received the maximum chunk of alleged bribe money -12.40 million euros (Rs 75 crore).

ED has stated that the money was laundered by payments raised on fictitious invoices to companies based in Mauritius like Ms Interstellar Technologies and other firms across the globe. ED has already sent a request seeking to visit Mauritius and other five countries as well.

The probe has revealed that after IDS Tunisia was incorporated, European middlemen Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke and Indian lawyer Gautam Khaitan allegedly received 24.6 million euros (approximately Rs 160 crore) from AgustaWestland Spa. Out of this amount, 3.88 million euros (Rs 24.60 crore) was transferred to Aeromatrix Info Solutions Pvt Ltd and 1.88 million euros (Rs 12 crore) to IDS Infotech India against invoices raised by these companies. The remaining amount of approximately 18.94 million euros (Rs 123 crore) was kept by IDS Tunisia.