Rafael Deal: Indian middlemen get a gift worth Rs 8.5 crore

The deal of Rafale planes is once again under question. A French publication has raised questions about the possibility of corruption in the Rafale plane deal. The French news website Media Part has published an article called Rafael Papers. This report claimed that Dassau, the French company that made Rafale, had to pay one million euros ‘as a gift’ to a middleman in India.

Media Part on Sunday published the first three-part series on the Rafale deal. Mediapart said,

“With this controversial deal [36 Rafael Fighter], Dassau also agreed to pay one million euros to a middleman, who now faces investigation in India in a case related to another defense deal.”

According to the report, disturbances in the Rafale fighter jet deal were first detected by the French Anti-Corruption Agency AFA after the signing of this deal in 2016.

Mediapart said that during the investigation of the company’s 2017 accounts, the expenditure of 508925 euros was detected in the name of ‘gift to the client’. This was more than the amount spent in other cases under the same item.

The report stated that when clarification was sought from the DASO on this expenditure, in its clarification, the company provided the bill of 30 March 2017 to the AFA, which was given by DefSys Solutions of India. (This company is Daiso’s sub-contractor company in India). The bill was for half the order given to make 50 models of Rafale fighter aircraft. The price of each model was more than 20 thousand Euros.

AFA asked Dasau about this expense, why the company placed such an order at such a price to the Indian company, why this expense was written “as a gift (as a gift) to the customer” and also asked questions whether a Have these small car models ever been built or installed anywhere?

“The Dassau Group was unable to provide a single document to the AFA showing that these models were present and delivered but did not have a single photograph.”

This raised suspicion that the purchase was “bogus” and intended to cover “hidden financial transactions”.

DefSys Solutions again in the circle of questions

Mediapart stated that DefSys is not expert in making aircraft models. DefSys is one of Dassault’s sub-contractors in the Rafale deal in India. According to the website of DefSys, Defsys “specializes in designing and manufacturing integrated electronic systems, electro-optical payloads, thermal implos, flight and firing simulators, electro-mechanical systems, on-board electronic subsystems, automated test equipment (ATEs). Huh.

Let me tell you that Sushne Gupta, belonging to the family that owns DefSys, was the middleman in the defense deals and also the agent of Dasso. Sushen Gupta was also arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the investigation of the Augusta-Westland chopper procurement scam in 2019.