Yet another Bofors lead is uncovered

Yet another Bofors lead is uncovered
RITU SARIN

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 6: Another trans-continental link to trace the Bofors payoffs has been established with the CBI receiving secret bank documents from Luxembourg and Austria. The documents were received by the agency earlier this week and are likely to be placed before the judge handling the Bofors case tomorrow.

The documents from Austria pertain to the kickbacks received by the UK-based AE Services and which is linked to Ottavio Quattrocchi while those from Luxembourg concern the Svenska account handled by former Bofors agent Win Chadha. The Austrian stream of the payments amounted to Rs 10 crore and followed an earlier circuitous trail.

The Cantonal Court in Geneva was informed that AE Services had credited Rs 9.3 crore to a Panamanian Company, Colbar Investments, and then on May 1990, the money had again moved to an account of the Inter Investment Development Co in Guernsey, Channel Islands. Within 10 days of the money being routed to Guernsey, it had been transferred to accounts in Switzerland andAustria.

The documents just received from Luxembourg deal with the major chunk of the payoffs amounting to Rs 38 crore which went into the Svenska account of Win Chadha. Details of these transactions and the quick flight of money was received by the CBI in January 1997, when the agency received the first batch of 500 documents from Geneva.

The documents showed the trail had moved further. The CBI issued fresh Letters Rogatory (LRs) to Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland but even before these countries responded, filed their first chargesheet on Octr 22, 1999. Sources say that the receipt of the bank documents from Austria and Luxembourg are very timely since the CBI is scrutinising the final batch of documents pertaining to the Rs 16 crore payoffs channelled to accounts of Pitco-Moresco-Moineao, believed to be controlled by the Hindujas. A second chargesheet is to be filed on the basis of the Pitco-Moresco-Moineao papers and with the papers received, the CBI will come one step closer to the end-use.