The codeword “SG” found in sheets and diaries recovered during the AgustaWestland chopper deal case means defence middleman Sushen Mohan Gupta, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has revealed. Earlier, it was speculated that SG could mean Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
According to a report by The New Indian, The ED said in its charge sheet that after verification of data relating to the case, they have concluded that SG refers to Sushen Gupta. It says, “There were several other emails sent to the ML administrator for transfer of funds to various entities which had references of ‘SG’. These transactions are seen in the pen drive establishing that the pen drive belongs to Gupta and the transfer of funds to these entities is also reflected in the bank statements of Interstellar Technologies Limited (ITL) establishing the fact of accuracy of data recorded in the transaction and the fact that the same have actually occurred.”
Defence Agent and middleman Sushen Gupta was arrested by ED in March 2019 in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case. In the scam during the UPA govt, several persons and business entities were used to route money used to pay kickbacks by AgustaWestland win the VVIP helicopter deal, and Sushen Gupta was involved in this process.
Several details of payments were recovered from Gupta, which has been matched with actual financial transactions and bank details of the concerned persons and entities. The ED charge sheet says that the agency has found 13 email references that prove that payments were made to several people on the instructions of Sushen Gupta.
“It is seen that the entries in the diaries, pen drive and sheets match and it can also be matched against the independent sources like transactions with individuals, bank statements received through LRs,” says ED.
Sushen Gupta was involved in bribery by Dassault in the cancelled fighter jet deal during the UPA govt. Reportedly, he was paid millions of euros in secret commissions by Dassault during the period 2004-2013. He was so involved in the deal that he had accessed to classified information during the bidding process for the MMRCA aircraft India was planning to buy.
Some other sheets recovered in the probe had revealed that main accused Christian Michel had used the words ‘AP’ for Ahmed Patel and ‘Fam’ for Family, presumably the Gandhi family. After this, there was speculations that SG refers to Sonia Gandhi.
The ED had also found the abbreviation RG in Sushen Gupta’s diary, which was speculated to be Rahul Gandhi, but later revealed to be Rajat Gupta. Rajat Gupta had received more than Rs 50 crore of the bribe money in the VVIP chopper deal.
