The Bofors scandal was a major corruption scandal in India in the 1980's. The then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and several others were accused of receiving monetary and other benefits from Bofors AB for winning the bid to supply Indian military with 155 mm field howitzer. The scale of the corruption was far worse than any that India had seen before, and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Indian National Congress party in the November 1989 general elections. It has been speculated that the scale of the scandal was close to Rs. 400 million (almost US$9 Million). The bofors scandal case came to light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as the defence minister. The bofors scam was revealed through investigative journalism by Chitra Subramaniam and N. Ram of the newspapers the Indian Express and The Hindu.
The middleman associated with the bofors artillery gun scandal was Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm Snamprogetti. Quattrocchi was reportedly close to the family of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and emerged as a powerful military hardware broker in the 1980s between big business houses and the Indian government. While the case was still being investigated by the investigation agencies, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991 for an unrelated cause. In 1997, the Swiss banks released some 500 documents after years of legal battle and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a case against Mr. Quattrocchi, Mr. Win Chadha, also naming Rajiv Gandhi, the defense secretary S. K. Bhatnagar and a number of others.
Reference : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_scandal
The middleman associated with the bofors artillery gun scandal was Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm Snamprogetti. Quattrocchi was reportedly close to the family of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and emerged as a powerful military hardware broker in the 1980s between big business houses and the Indian government. While the case was still being investigated by the investigation agencies, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on May 21, 1991 for an unrelated cause. In 1997, the Swiss banks released some 500 documents after years of legal battle and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a case against Mr. Quattrocchi, Mr. Win Chadha, also naming Rajiv Gandhi, the defense secretary S. K. Bhatnagar and a number of others.
Reference : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_scandal
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