AgustaWestland scam co-accused Rajeev Saxena, lobbyist Deepak Talwar extradited to India

NEW DELHI: India’s investigative agencies made another breakthrough in the VVIP helicopter scandal probe, with the UAE handing over an accused, Dubai-based businessman Rajeev Saxena, to them on Wednesday.

As per information, Saxena will likely be produced before a Delhi court on Thursday, after bringing him to India from Dubai on Wednesday night. He is alleged to have played a pivotal role in laundering kickbacks from the Indian Air Force’s deal with British manufacturer AgustaWestland to buy a dozen helicopters for use by VVIPs.

Corporate lobbyist Deepak Talwar, who is accused of concealing income of more than Rs 1,000 crore as well as facilitating civil aviation contracts during the UPA regime, is also being brought to India from Dubai and is expected to be produced before the court on Thursday, said people in the know.


The CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED), which are probing the VVIP chopper case, had last year managed to bring Christian Michel, a British national who was allegedly a middleman in the deal, to India from the UAE.

Saxena’s lawyers alleged that he was “illegally extradited” from the UAE and also claimed that he was not given access to his family, lawyers or even essential medicines. “He was boarded onto a private jet from a private terminal at Dubai,” one of them said.
ET was the first to report in July last year that the ED, in its supplementary chargesheet, had elaborated on how the alleged bribe money paid to clinch the deal was “layered” and projected as “untainted money” by creating “fictitious invoices”. It also mentioned how fake engineering contracts were created to hide the kickbacks, allegedly paid by AgustaWestland through companies controlled by advocate Gautam Khaitan and Saxena.

A local court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Saxena after the ED told it that he had not joined the investigation despite repeated summons. His name was mentioned in a chargesheet filed against his wife, Shivani, who was arrested by the ED in connection with the scam. She is currently out on bail.

Saxena was named only in the third supplementary complaint filed in July 2018. Khaitan, who is also named in that, has since challenged the complaint in the Delhi High Court.

The ED had earlier arrested Saxena, who is a director of Matrix Holdings in Dubai, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. He then moved court seeking cancellation of the warrant, claiming that he was not an absconder and had already served the required documents and details to the agency.