New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Gautam Khaitan, a co-accused in the case relating to the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal, on charges of money laundering, agency officials said Saturday. The arrest was carried out late Friday evening here.
The arrest comes a week after the Income Tax Department raided Khaitan’s offices and various other properties in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR).
It is learned that the financial probe agency has gathered evidence against the lawyer for allegedly receiving kickbacks in other defence deals, besides AgustaWestland, during the tenure of the Congress-led UPA government.
The ED said that the lawyer had been ‘controlling’ the modus operandi and was responsible for routing the money, misusing his connections and clients, including the ones inherited from his father, to launder the money with the use of a variety of accounts in Dubai, Mauritius, Singapore, Tunisia, Switzerland, the UK and India. Agency officials said the accounts included those of his undisclosed shell companies outside India.
The ED as well as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has named Khaitan in their separate charge sheets in the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP chopper deal case.
Khaitan was earlier arrested in September 2014 for his alleged involvement in the AgustaWestland deal. He got bail in January 2015 and re-arrested along with Sanjeev Tyagi, another accused in the case, December 9, 2016, by the CBI. He later secured bail.
IANS