Former ‘partners’ accuse each other of fraud in massive defence deals

In the last week of April, Claxton Edmonds Allen, a New York real estate consultant, started circulating documents totalling nearly 500 pages that alleged that his estranged associate Abhishek Verma was involved in money laundering, illegal dealings with defence manufacturers, forgery and tax evasion….

Allen’s “proof” against Verma consists of lengthy email conversations, credit card and banking transactions, and communications with defence companies. He claims he is willing to come to India and depose before any agency and wants to be enrolled as an informer under the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau’s 20% reward policy. Till a week ago, Allen claimed that he hadn’t even got an acknowledgement for his voluminous letters to various Indian agencies. But now he says the same agencies are keen to pursue the matter against Verma.

In a strongly worded letter in February to the Enforcement director, eminent jurist Ram Jethmalani said that Verma, a “protected favourite” of the CBI seems involved in ownership of $205 million, and that Allen was willing to help investigations by coming to India and providing ocular and documentary evidence.

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Response by Abhishek Verma:

Verma, the son of former Congress leader Srikant Verma, is accused of having received Rs.6 crore to bribe officials for defence deals in connection with the Naval war room leak case dating back to 2006. The Rs.6-crore case, however, is dwarfed by the CBI’s other probe into his affairs – involving deals with major equipment suppliers to the Indian military and an alleged $ 410 million stashed away in an American bank.

Earlier this week, the CBI moved to approach Allen – an American attorney who used to manage Verma’s funds in the US – about allegations he made in letters to them and the Enforcement Directorate five months ago. The letters accused Verma of being a middleman in alleged money laundering and surreptitious deals with defence manufacturers.

While the CBI moves forward with the probe, though, Verma is attempting to hit back through a criminal complaint accusing the American attorney of conspiring to extort, defame and eventually cheat him. According to Verma’s counsel, and the complaint will be taken up by additional chief metropolitan magistrate Mukesh Kumar on June 4.