15 February 2014

Pin It

Rolls-Royce Arms Bribery Scam Sudhir Choudhrie and his son Bhanu arrested in UK

Rolls-Royce Arms Bribery Scam Sudhir Choudhrie and his son Bhanu arrested in UK

Updated on Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Sudhir Choudhrie is a major donor to the UK Liberal Democrat party, and was until recently among the probables to become a member of UK's House of Lords.

Sudhir Choudhrie is believed to have moved to Britain in 2002 with his wife and lives in a £4m apartment in Chelsea.

He has at least one farm house and another independent house in Sunder Nagar in Delhi.

Since 2010, C&C Alpha has donated almost 500,000 pounds ($831,800) to the Liberal Democrats, junior partners to the Conservatives in Britain's ruling coalition. Sudhir Choudhrie has donated a further 155,000 pounds to the party since 2006, according to Britain's Electoral Commission.

He first donated £50,000 to the Lib Dems in August 2006 and has followed this up with payments of £25,000 and £20,000.

Two companies controlled by Choudhrie's son Bhanu and his nephew Dhruv - Alpha Healthcare and C&C Business Solutions - have donated a total of £475,000 to the Lib Dems.

In India, they are known be involved with construction firm Alpha G Corps, Ananda Spa etc.

Rolls Royce has been accused of bribing the son of former dictator Suharto with $ 20 million and a Rolls car to facilitate the purchase of engines by Garuda, the Indonesian national airline.

In China, the company is accused of having paid bribes to bag contracts with Air China in 2005 and with China Eastern Airlines in 2010.

The SFO had on December 23 confirmed that its director had opened a criminal investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption at Rolls-Royce. The investigation took a dramatic turn on Wednesday with the arrest of Choudhrie and his son.

According to preliminary information, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) of the UK is investigating allegations that Rolls-Royce, which makes aircraft engines, turbines etc, paid bribes in China and Indonesia to secure contracts, and that Choudhrie was the intermediary for the payments.


Sudhir Choudhrie and India connection or Scams

According to the Guardian, the Indian CBI also investigated claims that Choudhrie and his companies received a number of suspected remittances to the tune of millions of dollars" from arms firm Israel Aircraft Industries over a deal to supply seven Barak missile systems and 200 missiles to the Indian navy.

Choudhrie got a clean chit from CBI in 2011 over an Rs-208 crore deal with Israel’s Soltam for the upgrade of artillery guns

Choudhrie has figured in several major defence scandals in India, and was named in at least two FIRs filed by CBI, and also in its list of about two dozen "undesirable contact men", who are suspected of manipulating government contracts. Both the FIRs were closed by CBI saying it had found no concrete evidence to take forward the case.

Choudhrie's name has also figured in documents filed by Italian investigators into the VVIP helicopter scandal, in which former IAF chief S P Tyagi and others are named

Choudhrie and his son are known to be non-domiciled for tax purposes and base many of their business interests in tax havens, where businesses do not have to declare their accounts publicly.

Updated on Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Indian government today put on hold all existing and future deals with Rolls Royce pending a CBI probe into bribery allegations and decided to recover money paid as commission by London-based company.

Media reported that CBI investigation has been ordered because of allegations that bribes were paid in deals worth Rs 10,000 crore for supply of aircraft engines to the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

Rolls Royce has supplied engines for six types of aircraft –

1)AJT Hawk
2)Jaguar
3)Avro
4)Kiran MK-II
5)Sea Harrier
6)Sea King Helicopters

And IAF was to sign a contract with it for maintenance and overhaul of these.

The HAL has also been asked to take action to recover from the London-based Rolls Royce the money paid by it to its commission agents

The firm has informed HAL that it has paid commissions to Aashmore Private Limited for clinching military deals and the amount ranged between 10 and 11.3 per cent, sources said.

HAL and Rolls Royce have transacted business worth over Rs 5,000 crore between years 2007-2011

Suggested Reading –

Liberal Democrat donor Sudir Choudhrie accused of brokering Israeli arms deal

UK political donor and son arrested in Rolls-Royce probe

Lib Dem donors who gave Clegg's party £1.2million arrested over multi-million Rolls Royce Indian corruption probe


Reality views by sm –

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Tags – Sudhir Choudhrie UK Arrested