New Delhi: A Singapore-based company named in the Hindenburg Research report as being an Adani group “related party” figured in the first chargesheet and second supplementary chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the AgustaWestland helicopter scam. Its name was subsequently dropped in the third supplementary chargesheet filed by the ED in 2018, after authorities in Singapore replied to the Letter Rogatory (LR) sent to them by the ED.
Gudami International Pte, a Singapore-based company, was declared a related party by Adani Exports (later renamed Adani Enterprises) in a filing with the BSE in 2002. As per the Hindenburg Research report, this was because it shared a director and key common shareholder with Adani Global. It has also been misspelt as Gudani in the chargesheets. In November 2017, after the LR was sent and before the third chargesheet was filed, Gudami International Pte Ltd became “inactive” and was “struck off” the Singapore registry.
The Singapore-based company is mentioned in the first chargesheet filed by the ED in 2014 in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter case. The chargesheet accused Gudami of doing business – by raising fake invoices for consultancy services provided – with the prime accused, Gautam Khaitan.
Gudami International Pte Ltd also finds a mention in the second supplementary chargesheet filed by the ED in 2017. In this chargesheet filed against middleman Rajiv Saxena, the same companies are mentioned once again, in the exact language of the original chargesheet.
Khaitan’s modus operandi
As per its chargesheet, the ED had around 2009, in a first of many raids, seized a laptop from an employee of Khaitan’s. A forensic examination threw up the names of several companies that received funds through a maze of shell companies, which includes Gudami. The money trail began with AgustaWestland SpA transferring 24,377,020 euros to a Tunisia-based company, IDS Tunisia, which in turn transferred 12.4 million euros to Interstellar Technologies Limited, Mauritius, owned by Khaitan.
Interstellar was receiving and paying money against invoices raised, the ED says in its chargesheet:
“Some invoices (were) raised upon Interstellar Technologies Ltd by other companies like Donald Mcarthy Trading Pte Ltd (Singapore), Gudani International Pte Ltd against consultancy services provided by Dutessellar Technologies Ltd and in some cases consultancy services received by Interstellar Technologies Ltd which means that M/s Interstellar Technologies received money and paid money against invoices respectively.”
“This was part of kickbacks received by middlemen Guido Haschke and Carlo Gerosa from Italian firm Finmeccanica to allegedly fix the Indian chopper deal,” The Economic Times reported in 2018, adding that “Gudami International Pte is among the three Singapore-based companies that investigators suspect received over Euro 2 million, which was allegedly laundered by raising bogus invoices, in a network of companies being operated allegedly by lawyer Gautam Khaitan”.
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Missing from the third chargesheet
In the third supplementary chargesheet filed in 2018, the ED dropped mention of Gudami International. This omission came after the ED received a response to a detailed LR it had sent to Singapore for further information on these companies. In August 2016, as per The Economic Times, a Letter of Request had been sent under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to Singapore seeking information on companies belonging to Gautam Khaitan and associates, including Gudami International Private Limited, Singapore. In fact, an ED team was also to travel to Singapore in person to further the Investigation.
The 2018 supplementary chargesheet stated that an LR dated February 9, 2016, was sent to Singapore and Switzerland but the chargesheet is silent on the names of the companies for which the LR was sent. It only states that “information/documents have been received from Mauritius, Singapore and Switzerland”.
The 2018 chargesheet gives complete details of how Khaitan did business with most of these entities. A scrutiny of documents received from Singapore revealed “laundering by Gautam Khaitan through various entities” including several transactions totalling 25,5000 euros by Interdev Pte Ltd between 2005-07. Another of Khaitan’s shell companies, Windsor Holdings Group Pvt Ltd, also received money from Blue Island Limited ($3.63 million) and Interdev Pte Ltd sent 38,000 euros to Windsor Holdings.
ED’s silence on Gudami
While Interdev and Blue Island are two companies that Interstellar Technologies raised invoices for, the ED is silent on what information was given by Singapore for Gudami International or Donald Mcarthy.
Interdev and Blue Island, as well as Gudami International and Donald Mcarthy, have all been struck off by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore. The directors of Donald Mcarthy are an auditing firm, Prudential Public Accounting Corporation, per Opencorporates.com. They onboarded on November 1, 2017 after the LR was sent to Singapore and before the 2018 supplementary chargesheet was filed. This is also when Gudami International Pte Ltd became “inactive” and was “struck off” the Singapore registry.
The information received as a reply to the LR from Singapore was crucial to the case of money laundering against Khaitan’s wife. “Ritu Khaitan was directly/indirectly involved in the activities connected with laundering proceeds of crime. While she denied having any foreign bank accounts, the LRs received from Singapore revealed otherwise,” the ED said in its third supplementary chargesheet.
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Gudami International’s links with the Adani group have been investigated by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence in 2005 in a diamond custom duty evasion case, as per Hindenburg. (The Adani Group, in its response, has said that “each of the above matters are closed and dismissed in our favour. Further, these have been disclosed by us in the public domain and all our stakeholders are aware of the same. These have been cited solely in an attempt to further the narrative of lies.”)
A Gudami International director is a man named Chang Chung-Ling, who is also a director in other Adani entities. As per the DRI probe, reported by Hindenburg, the registered office address of Adani Global Ltd (later the flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd), in Singapore was also the residential address of Chang Chung-Ling. Vinod Shantilal Shah, director of Adani Global Ltd, and Chang Chung-Ling were shown to be residing at the same address.
Shah’s wealth was reported by NDTV in September 2022 as having “increased by 850 percent in the last five years”. NDTV describes him as “elder brother of Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani, (who) has become the richest non-resident Indian (NRI), according to the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022”. The report said that “Vinod Shantilal Adani is also the sixth richest Indian on the list with a wealth of ₹ 1.69 lakh crore”.