On a trip to Rome last week for attending a conference on human trafficking, CBI Director Ranjit Sinha also met the Indian envoy in Italy and discussed ways to fastrack the agency’s probe into the Rs3,600 crore AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter scam.
Sinha was in Rome last week to attend the conference organised by london’s Metropolitan Police and met Indian Ambassador Basant Kumar Gupta discussed measures to expedite the probe, official sources said.
The CBI Director pressed for early execution of the agency’s judicial request (letters Rogatory) to Italy seeking certain information on the accused and companies named in its FIR, the sources said.
Both discussed ways and means for better coordination with the Italian authorities to secure crucial information sought by the agency in its judicial requests, the sources said.
Through the lRs, the CBI has sought to record the statements of Giuseppe Orsi and Bruno Spagnolini, former and current Chief Executives of AgustaWestland respectively, who are facing trial in Italy.
Orsi was heading AgustaWestland when the deal was signed in 2010 and is now the Chief Executive Officer of parent company Finmeccanica. The statements of Orsi and Spagnolini are important for CBI for finalising its charge sheet, the agency sources said.
According to the CBI FIR, “Haschke Guido and Gerosa Carlo (middlemen) managed to send Euro 5.6 million through Mohali-based IDS Infotech and Chandigarh-based Aeromatrix Info Solutions Private ltd to India and kept the remaining amount out of about Euro 24.30 million received from AgustaWestland with themselves in the account of IDS Tunisia.”