the bofors scam

7/29/2019 The Bofors Scam

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The Bofors scam pay-off for Indias gun purchase deal with Sweden broke out in 1987. A third

of the Indians living today were not yet born then; and a fourth of the Indians living then are no

more alive today. So some history needs to be recalled here. First, the Bofors payoff was exposed

by the media and the Rajiv government went all out to suppress the exposure. Including the

payoff of $36.5 million to Q, the Bofors deal contemplated three streams of payoff totalling $250

million. Persistent investigations by the media and the CBI brought out the involvement of Q inthe gun deal.

The closeness of Q and his wife Maria to Sonia family was always well known.

The Sonia and Maria families spent their weekends and annual holidays together.

They left ones children in the custody of the other when going out of station. So intense was their

relationship. The media found that some $7.3 million from Bofors AB had found its way into Qs

secret bank accounts. Facts began to tumble out testifying that it was fee to Q for swinging the

$1.2 billion gun deal for the Swedish gun maker.

Here is how Q got the deal for Bofors.

The Rajiv Gandhi government could not decide for a long time what gun to buy the British,

Austrian or Swedish. The two brokers engaged by Bofors could not expedite the deal. Suddenly, in

the second half of 1985, AE Services (AES), a shell company, entered the deal with this offer to

Bofors: Look. If we get you the deal by March 31, 1986, give us a fee of three per cent. If not,

dont pay. Bofors accepted the offer and signed up with the AES shell on October 15, 1985.

Unless Bofors knew that the man behind AES had had the clout to get it done from the Rajiv

government, it would never have signed with a shell company.

And AES shell did get the Rajiv government to sign the contract with Bofors on March 22, 1986

seven days ahead of the target date of March 31, 1986. Within six months, AES got the first

tranche of its fee of $7.3 million. Proof emerged slowly that this money finally went to Q, showing

he was the man behind the shell.

Bofors remitted on September 3, 1986, $7.3 million into AES account number 18051-53 in

Nordfinanz Bank, Zurich.

This equalled 20 per cent of the three per cent bribe of $36.5 millions due to AES.


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Two weeks later (on September 16, 1986) AES delivered $7 million into account number

254.561.60W in the same bank in the name of Colbar Investments a company controlled by Q

and Maria.

In April 1987, the Swedish Radio broke the news of bribes in Bofors deal with India. Later, inJune 1988, the media published authoritative documents seized by the Swedish police which

established the payoff. By now, Bofors scam had become a huge national issue.

Forthwith Q and Maria hurriedly shifted their loot, grown with interest, from Geneva to Channel

Islands, to New York to Austria. First, on July 25, 1988 $7.9 million moved from Colbar to account

number 488.320.60X of Wetelsen Overseas SA, in UBS, Geneva. Next, on May 21, 1990, $9.2

million moved from Wetelson to account number 123983 of IIDCL, Ansbacher, St Peter Port,

Guernsey (Channel Islands). Later, on June 5, 1990, $2.4 million channelled into code-named

account Robusta in Banque Karfinco SA from Swiss Bank Corp, New York. Afterwards, on June 12,

1990, $5.3 million was transferred to code-named accounts Arabica, Robusta and Luxor inAustria from Swiss Bank accounts in Geneva.

Within six days of the Swiss government giving these details to India in 1993, Q slipped out of

India and turned a fugitive, thanks to the Narasimha Rao government helping him to run away.

Later, in June 2003, Interpol found that Q and Maria had two accounts, bearing numbers

5A5151516L and 5A5151516M in the London branch of the Swiss bank BSI AG with Euros three

million and $1 million.

They were frozen on CBIs request.

British courts later repeatedly turned down Quattrocchis several appeals to de -freeze the

accounts.

But, on December 22, 2005, the Congressled UPA government U-turned. H R Bharadwaj, the law

minister, got the additional solicitor general of India, B Dutta, to go to London to do the dirty job

of releasing the amounts.

Can anyone say now that Q is innocent and he just received some charity of $7.3 million from

Bofors? Yet the Sonia-led government allowed Q to smuggle the bribe from the frozen accounts.

All that the CBI asks of Q is this: Come to India and answer these questions why Bofors paid him

the money; did it relate to the gun deal; what is his relation with Sonia family, AE Services, Colbar

Investments and the coded and numbered bank accounts through which the payoff has finally


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reached him.

Why not Sonia Gandhi just ask him to appear before the court and prove his innocence? Why does

she, on the contrary, abet his refusal to present himself before courts in India? It is clear that she

will not ask him. Why? Here is the answer: unless Sonia protects Q here, he will not protect heroutside. The stakes seem to be too high.

QED: Manmohan Singh today does what Sonia wants like Narasimha Rao did then what she wanted.

Yet, there is a difference between how the two obliged her. Rao felt shy to do what she wanted.

So he did it stealthily. Singh does what she wants openly and shamelessly. Even, a Sonia family

retainer like H R Bharadwaj feels shy to own up the shameless withdrawal of the Red Corner

Notice on Q; but the PM owns it proudly. Singh is shameless about what Rao used to feel shy. Why?

Unlike Rao, Singh is not an elected prime minister but a nominated one; he is not chosen by

democratic process, but selected by the dynasty; he is not backed by the people, but backed by

the family. So the shift from shyness to shamelessness, from Rao to Singh.

The government of INDIA and A.B.BOFOR Sin Swedenon March24,1986 for the supply of 410field how it zersammunition

andotheraccessoriesaspartofthe155mmgunsystematatotalcostofRs.1,437.72crores

the bofors scam

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