The CBI last night arrested Yasmin Kapoor, a close aide of lobbyist Deepak Talwar in the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) violation case. The CBI had registered a case on November 16, 2017 on complaint from the Ministry of Home Affairs against Delhi-based private firms Advantage India, Accordis Healthcare Private Limited, Deepak Talwar, Sunil Khandelwal and Raman Kapoor and other unknown people over allegations of FCRA violations.
The CBI is investigating allegations of criminal conspiracy, forgery, making false statement before authority, use of forged documents and attempt to cheat by the accused. As per reports, Yasmin Kapoor, a close aide of Deepak Talwar, along with three others were taken into custody last night and will be produced before a special CBI court later today. CBI suspects that Kapoor played an active role in diverting funds received by Talwar’s NGO Advantage India. She was also allegedly involved in day-to-day working of companies related to Talwar.
The CBI had arrested Talwar in July this year and he has been in judicial custody since. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had earlier found dubious deposits alleged to be the kickbacks paid by the international airlines into several accounts of extradited Congress era lobbyist Deepak Talwar. The ED had discovered Rs 270 crores deposited in Bank of Singapore by international airlines and another Rs 88 crore received in his NGO to influence some top ministers and bureaucrats in the previous UPA regime.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has also alleged that the ‘corporate lobbyist’, Deepak Talwar, who was involved in several aviation deals during the UPA regime, acted as a middleman in negotiations to favour foreign private airlines causing the loss to national carrier Air India. According to ED, Talwar received a huge amount of money in his bank accounts deposited by various airlines for allegedly compromising lucrative routes and flying destinations of India’s national carrier Air India and thus immensely benefitting foreign airlines.
The preliminary investigation by the Enforcement Directorate had revealed that three years after the Indian Airlines inked a deal to buy 43 aircraft from Airbus, the aircraft manufacturer floated a shell company based out of Singapore in partnership with the middleman Deepak Talwar and, another three years later, transferred USD 10.5 million in its accounts in two tranches.
The middleman Deepak Talwar, along with another high-profile fugitive, Rakesh Saxena, was extradited from UAE in the same plane of the government of India on January 30, 2019. Before that, the middleman in VVIP chopper scam Christian Michel was also extradited to India. Michel, in his deposition, had named a certain Italian Lady and ‘Italian Lady’s son R’ in the AgustaWestland scam.
