Money came through bogus engineering contracts, says Italian probe

The Italian investigative report into the Rs 3,546 crore VVIP chopper scandal claims that middlemen were paid at least Euro 400,000 upfront by Finmecannica for bribing officials in India and that the rest of the kickbacks came thorough inflated bills and invoices that were in the guise of engineering contracts.

In the 64-page report that details the manner in which money was routed to India for distrubution to influence the deal, there is a mention that while Euro 100,000 was paid in cash by Switzerland based middleman Guido Hascke to the New Delhi based Tyagi brothers, the rest came thorugh an engineering contract with IDS, a Tunisia based engineering consultancy.

VVIP chopper deal: See enlarged document

The report says that Finmecannica CEO Giuseppe Orsi, who is currently under arrest, agreed first for a 5 percent contract with the middlemen to swing the contract.

''The amounts agreed between Agusta Westland representatives, Giuseppe Orsi and SPAGNOLINI Bruno, with the mediators HASCHKE Guido Ralph, GEROSA Carlo and also CHRISTIAN Mitchell were also inclusive of bribes to be paid to Indian public officials to perform deeds which were against their office duties and in particular to manipulate the tender regarding the acquisition of the above mentioned helicopters," the report specifically states.

Rough transcript of cover documents

ORSI Giuseppe, SPAGNOLINI Bruno, HASCHKE Guido, GEROSA Carlo

aiming at embezzling funds in international economic operations.

Their positions:

ORSI Giuseppe, CEO and president of Finmeccanica from 04.05.2011, previously CEO of AgustaWestland Holdings N.V. from 2005 till May 2011, and ?

SPAGNOLINI Bruno, CEO from May 2011 of AgustaWestland Holdings N.V. based in Holland and already CEO of AgustaWestland spa from 23.12.2004 till 13.06.2011

HASCHKE Guido Ralph, chief and partner of GADIT S.A. of Lugano and GORDIAN SERVICES S.A.R.L. based in Tunis

GEROSA Carlo, Haschke's partner in the above companies

... contd.

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