Controversial arms dealer Abhishek Verma could face fresh prosecution for cheating and defrauding a Cyprus-based company of Rs5 crore and using it to pay bribes and lavish gifts to Defence Ministry officials for procuring deals.

The CBI, which is already enquiring into the multi-crore arms deals involving Verma, told a Delhi court on Saturday that it was in the process of co-relating documents obtained from the Cyprian firm with those of other cases collected during raids at Verma’s residence.

The Cyprus-based company Corewip limited had approached the court to complain against Verma, his Romanian live-in partner Anca Neacsu, and other associates of his company, Ganton India Private limited (GIPl), accusing them of cheating and defrauding it of USD 1.1 million (approx Rsfive crore).

The court has granted CBI time till April 3 to submit the latest status report in the case. An FIR has already been registered against Verma on the order passed by the city court on March 16.

The company claimed in its complaint that Verma had approached them back in May-June 2009 with a business proposal to partner in a project dealing with mobile and fixed-line service with voice.

The complaint, filed through lawyer Harshvardhan Jha, further stated that Verma claimed his company Ganton limited, USA, was in the process of incorporating a 100 per cent subsidiary, GIPl, whose Managing Director was Anca Neacsu.

A joint venture agreement was signed on November 18, 2009, under which Corewip and GIPl had to contribute Rs5 crore each towards the initial paid-up capital of the JV. The complainant firm abided with the agreement and was issued 49 per cent stake in GIPl.

The company came to learn about the fraud when they arrived in India in April 2010, only to find that in their place, some unknown persons were authorised signatories to operate the joint venture company (JVC) bank account. A week later, Verma informed the complainant through an email on the dissolution of JVC.

The court ordered an FIR in the case, convinced by the sequence of events that suggested that till date the Rights Transfer Agreement has not been signed by the Indian Party (GIPl) and the complainant’s investment in the JVC has been fraudu- lently withdrawn and squandered.

As per the leads received from Edmund Allen, Verma’s estranged business partner, the complainant's money was splurged on officials of Ministry of Defence by way of expensive gifts and hefty bribes for arms contracts.

A part of money is also believed to have been laundered overseas through hawala. The CBI has asked Allen not to reveal any details of the case with any other agency or individual owing to the serious national and international ramifications attached with it.

In June 2012, in a raid conducted at the house of Verma’s close associate Ram Prakash Singh, CBI recovered four trunk loads of documentary evidence. This included financial and bank accounts of GIPl and the JVC floated with the complainant. The CBI team had interacted with the complainant company’s officials in New York and gathered over 3,000 documents and emails.

It was in New York that the CBI team had met Allen, who spilled the beans on the cross-linkages between the complainant’s case with those other numerous cases pending against Verma.