It alleged that Dassault paid at least 7.5 million euros through ‘overbilled’ IT contracts with the shell company to secure the sale of Jet to middleman Sushen Gupta from 2007 to 2012.
French portal Mediapart has alleged that Dassault paid middleman Sushen Gupta at least €7.5 million from 2007 to 2012 through “overbilled” IT contracts with a shell company to secure a €7.87 billion deal . Rafale deal with India. Despite the existence of papers relating to October 2018, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is yet to conduct the investigation, it alleged.
The response of the CBI on this allegation is awaited.
Investigative agencies have accused Mr. Gupta of playing a key role in the conduct of the commissions in 2010. AgustaWestland VVIP Helicopter The deal through Mauritius-based shell company Interstellar Technologies Limited and several such entities.
Arrest by ED
In March 2019, Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested him In that case, based on disclosures made by Rajiv Saxena, who was deported from the UAE. The latter revealed that Interstellar Technologies was controlled by Mr. Gupta and another accused, Gautam Khaitan. Further money was transferred by him to other institutions in different countries.
According to a French portal report, the Attorney General’s office in Mauritius had sent the documents to the CBI Director on October 11, 2018, in response to a request letter seeking information in the helicopter deal case. A week earlier, on October 4, 2018, the CBI had received complaints from advocate Prashant Bhushan and former Union minister Arun Shourie alleging corruption in the Rafale deal.
“…His (Sushen Gupta’s) Mauritian company, Interstellar Technologies, received at least 7.5 million euros from a French aviation firm between 2007 and 2012, thanks to IT contracts that were clearly over-billed, and in which Most of the money was carefully remitted from Mauritius using a system of alleged false invoicing. Some of these invoices even had the name of the French company wrongly referred to instead of Dassault Aviation,” the mediapart report said. .
According to the portal, Mr. Gupta was hired by Dassault as a middleman in 2001, when India announced it wanted to buy fighter jets; The official bidding process was started only in 2007.
“Other documents obtained by Indian spies show that in 2015, during the final negotiations of the Rafale contract, Sushen Gupta obtained confidential documents from the Defense Ministry of India detailing the stance of the Indian negotiators, in particular How did he calculate the price? airplane. Dassault declined to comment on these documents. When contacted by Mediapart, Sushen Gupta did not respond,” the report said.
three-part investigative series
In a three-part investigative series in April, Mediapart said Dassault paid €1 million to Defis Solutions, one of the Gupta family’s Indian companies, for the production of 50 replica models of the Rafale jet, but to French authorities. No evidence was shown that they were actually built.
Also in July, the French publication reported that a French judge would judicially investigate the Rafale deal on corruption charges following the decision of the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF).
The Rafale deal has faced many questions in the past related to allegations of corruption, favoritism and process deviations.
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