Making A Difference

Arms And The Money Man

Sudhir Choudhrie, believed to fix big arms deals, is a respected figure in the UK

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Arms And The Money Man
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An investigation by BBC Panorama and The Guardian has turned up embarrassing details on Indian born billionaire arms dealer Sudhir Choudhrie, who now lives in London and has a massive business empire, with interests spanning aviation and healthcare. Their investigation shows that several foreign defence firms, including the UK’s Rolls-Royce and Russia’s MiG, paid millions of dollars to companies associated with Choudhrie. Both these companies have been pursuing multiple defence contracts in India.

Choudhrie has been probed by the CBI and the ED for his role in other military scandals. He is on a list of “unde­sirable middlemen”. Since his name eme­rged in a journalistic investigation, he and his family moved to London. He has been arrested in India and the UK, but released.

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Investigations by BBC and The Guardian look at a 2008 leaked report from Credit Suisse, which began looking into suspicious money transfers to Choudhrie’s companies for money-laundering. Of the several accounts they scanned, most were in the names of his son and cousin, Bhanu and Aman.  

Among the details that turned up was that Choudhrie’s companies worked with Rolls-Royce on the sale of Hawk aircraft to India. They found that Bhanu Choudhrie travelled to Geneva with a BAE official, Peter Ginger, who was also a key negotiator on the Hawk deal with India. All the Hawk aircraft were fitted with Rolls-Royce engines and the deal was worth nearly 400 million pounds.

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Credit Suisse’s analysis shows that Chou­dhrie’s firms were paid almost 100 million dollars by Russian defence firms, including from suppliers of Indian military aircraft such as MiG Corporation.  

Middlemen and defence agents have been banned in India; known players are even blacklisted. At present, the BBC and The Guardian investigation points more towards links between the companies and Choudhrie, but not so much between Choudhrie and his possible partners on the Indian side of the deals.

Choudhrie continues to be successful businessman in the UK. In 2013, he was given a business award by current British prime minister, Theresa May, then the home secretary. He has also donated more than 1 million pounds to the British Liberal Democrat party.

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