French magazine publishes fake invoices that helped in Rafale deal

The publication also claimed that despite being aware of the existence of the documents in 2018, when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in power, the Indian investigative agencies decided not to pursue the case.

“This includes offshore companies, dubious contracts and ‘false’ invoices. Mediapart may disclose that India’s federal police force, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) have associates that fight money laundering.” There is evidence from October 2018 that Dassault has paid at least €7.5 million in secret commission to middleman Sushen Gupta,” it said.

despite repeated calls Hindustan TimesCBI and ED officials did not respond.

Five months ago, Mediapart reported that a French judge had been appointed to investigate suspected “corruption and favoritism” related to the deal. In April, it also claimed it was in possession of documents that showed Dassault and its industrial partner Thales, a defense electronics firm, paid “middleman” Gupta several million euros in a “secret commission”.

Responding to MediaPart’s report, Amit Malviya of the Bharatiya Janata Party tweeted: “Dassault paid €14.6 million to mediator Sushen Gupta in the period 2004-2013 to sell Rafale. So the UPA was taking bribes, But couldn’t close the deal? The NDA later scrapped it and struck a contract with the French government, which irked Rahul Gandhi.

According to the April report, most of the payments were made during the UPA regime. The report said, “According to an account spreadsheet belonging to Sushen Gupta, an entity named ‘D’, which is a code he regularly used to designate Dassault, spent the period 2004-2013. paid €14.6 million to InterDev in Singapore.”