Bogus receipts and middleman commissions: Mediapart’s latest revelations on the controversial Rafale deal

In a series of revelations about the Rs 59,000-crore inter-governmental deal with India for the supply of 36 Rafale fighter jets, French investigative journal Mediapart has claimed “bogus” invoices were used to make the deal happen.

According to Mediapart, French aircraft maker Dassault Aviation used these “bogus” invoices to at least 7.5 million euros in secret commissions to a middleman to help it secure the Rafale deal with India. The deal involved “offshore companies, dubious contracts and ‘false’ invoices” with proof of corruption among the highest orders in the Indian bureaucracy, the report said.

Critically, Mediapart reported that India’s agencies, including the CBI and ED, “had proof since October 2018” that Dassault paid at least 7.5 million euros “in secret commissions” to the middleman, Sushen Gupta, but failed to act.

Mediapart’s latest revelations were widely reported by the Indian media.

Media outlets like the Hindu, the Hindustan Times, and ABP focused on the fact that CBI had relevant documents and proof against Gupta since 2018, but didn’t act. Gupta was arrested in March 2019 by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal, but the Rafale connection was missing back then.

India TV noted that a “big Congress vs Bharatiya Janata Party war” had broken out since the report came out, since the “secret commissions” took place under the previous Congress government at the centre. The Times of India described it as a “political slugfest”.

In April, Mediapart had reported on alleged bribery and allegations of corruption in connection with the deal. It should be pointed out that sections of the Indian media had proclaimed the Rafale deal was clean as a whistle after the Supreme Court controversially gave the Modi government a clean chit in 2019.