The Enforcement Directorate has filed a charge sheet against Embraer SA (Brazil) and others in connection with the $210-million Embraer deal in 2008 for sale of three aircraft to the Defence Research and Development Organisation.
Among those arraigned are Interdev Aviation Services Private Limited, KRBL Limited, its director Anoop Kumar Gupta and his nephew Anurag Potdar.
The ED's money-laundering case is based on an FIR registered in 2016 by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Embraer was then being probed by the authorities in the United States and Brazil for alleged employment of an agent in facilitating the contract for sale of three fully modified EMB-145 aircraft.
According to the ED, Embraer paid a commission of $5.76 million to a middleman named Vipin Khanna to secure the contract. The kickback was routed through its subsidiaries to Interdev Aviation Services, Singapore, under a sham agreement. About $3.275 million was further transferred from Interdev Aviation Services to KRBL DMCC, Dubai, which is a 100% owned subsidiary of KRBL Limited, and then to India via KRBL Limited.
The KRBL director, Mr. Gupta, had allegedly signed the sham agreement between Interdev Aviation Services and KRBL DMCC to receive the “proceeds of crime”.
Based on its findings, the ED attached assets worth ₹16.29 crore belonging to KRBL Limited. The order was confirmed by the Adjudicating Authority. “Possession of the confirmed attached properties have also been taken by the ED. In the charge sheet, their confiscation has also been requested,” said an official.
The CBI had earlier examined the role of Mr. Khanna in a gun deal with South Africa-based Denel, but it failed to collect prosecutable evidence and had to submit a closure report. His suspected involvement was also investigated in the Barak missile contract with Israel and supply of weapons to Pakistan, the CBI sources had earlier said.
