One middlemen named 'ADR' has claimed in his interrogation

that the first meeting of one of the middlemen Zappa with Tyagi happened at the time when the tender was in the Request for Information (RFI) phase. "Already in the Zappa-ACM Tyagi meeting, one of the topics was the one of the 18,000 feet altitude, which was practically excluding all the competitors, except for the French ones, Eurocopter which anyway did not have a VIP model," ADR said as per the report. "When the tender was issued, I informed Orsi or Lunardi that the 18,000 feet limit had been lowered. The operational ceiling had been set at 15,000 feet. This had reopened the race for Agusta along with the Russians and the Americans," he added. The middleman reportedly claimed he had paid around Rs 72 lakhs to the three cousins of ACM Tyagi. "I remitted the total amount of 100,000 euros (Rs 72 lakhs). There was a previous agreement between us and the Indians to share the compensations for the consultancies at 50 per cent. "In reality, we shared only the first two portions. The other 200.000 euros were kept by me and GEROSA also on the basis of the real expenses we faced for our travels to India," he said. (MORE)