“I would not have earned throughout my life even 10 per cent of what I have got in this deal.” This one remark by Ashutosh Verma, Deputy Director of Income Tax (Investigations), made the CBI’s surveillance unit sit up and, armed with the phone intercept, the agency zeroed in and arrested arms dealer Suresh Nanda, his son Sanjeev and Verma in Mumbai yesterday. Nanda’s chartered accountant Bipin Shah too was held by the CBI.

Verma, an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) official, was handling the file of Suresh Nanda, named by the CBI in FIRs in two big Defence deals — the import of Barak missiles and supply of Armoured Recovery Vehicles (ARVs). The deals are among a clutch of 48 Defence-related cases referred to the CBI between December 2004 and August 2005.

Suresh Nanda, son of former Navy chief Admiral S M Nanda, has been named “middleman” in the Rs 1,125-crore import of Barak missiles and the supply of 87 ARVs in which the CBI suspects a loss of Rs 51 crore was caused to the national exchequer.

According to the CBI, investigations in both cases are at an “advanced” stage and former Defence Minister George Fernandes is expected to be questioned shortly on the rationale for clinching the deals.

Nanda’s arrest appeared imminent once the CBI received the final dossier from the UK on his financial transactions. But the telephone intercept landed him in the CBI net sooner than what even the sleuths anticipated.

So when Verma, after a brief vacation in Goa, flew to Mumbai yesterday using a fake identity, a CBI team was on his tail. According to the CBI, he was received at the airport by Bipin Shah and taken to J W Marriott Hotel to meet Nanda and his son Sanjeev (of the infamous BMW case) to “negotiate” payment of the remaining bribes to “doctor” an appraisal report. While the meeting was on, the CBI barged in and arrested the four men.

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