New Delhi: From being “undesirable middlemen” in arms deals to parking money in offshore accounts for evading taxes, the Indian-origin Choudhrie family which finds itself in the middle of a CBI case involving alleged corruption has had a checkered past.
On Monday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) lodged a case against British aerospace major Rolls-Royce along with London-based arms dealer Sudhir Choudhrie and his son Bhanu for alleged corruption with regard to a Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) deal.
The two are suspected of being paid as middlemen to secure deals for Rolls-Royce in India, with regard to the procurement of 24 BAE Hawk 115Y AJT aircraft and materials for the manufacture of 42 aircraft between 2003 and 2012.
This comes years after a 2016 investigation by BBC and The Guardian disclosed that Rolls-Royce made “secret payments” of around £10 million to companies linked to Sudhir Choudhrie.
In 2021, Bhanu Choudhrie was named in the Pandora Papers case for holding offshore accounts in Cyprus.
In the past, the family has also faced allegations of receiving over $100 million from Russian arms companies during the period between 2007 and 2008, according to a report by Clariden Leu — then a private banking division of Credit Suisse.
The father-son duo was under the scanner by both the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the CBI in the past but none of them have been charged.
However, Sudhir Choudhrie has reportedly been blacklisted by the Indian government for suspected corruption.
Who are the Choudhries?
Born in September 1949 in Delhi, Sudhir Choudhrie earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Delhi University. He is said to have come from a family involved in real estate and aviation, given his uncle was once a chairman of the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
Reports indicate that Choudhrie was averse to joining his grandfather’s real estate business in Delhi. He therefore, first began working in the news and entertainment sector where he would import UK-made equipment for television centres. He also got involved in exporting consumer goods to the Soviet Union.
Upon emigrating to the UK in the late ’90s, his businesses branched into hospitals, aviation, psychiatry, hospitality, and more. As a longstanding donor of Green Templeton College at Oxford University, the Indian businessman also has a library there named in his honour.
While the family business grew, Sudhir’s wife Anita forayed into philanthropy and founded a charity called ‘Path to Success’. In 2016, the same year that the BBC and The Guardian story broke, the charity raised over £100,000 at its tenth-anniversary gala dinner.
In a 2016 interview to UK magazine Spear’s, the Choudhrie couple showed off their vintage car collection comprising 37 collectibles and a private art collection including works by M. F. Husain. The couple told the reporter that they were keen to merge the two collections to create their very own “museum”.
When asked about the negative publicity they received after the BBC and The Guardian reports as well as the cases lodged against the family by British and Indian agencies, Anita Choudhrie replied: “The minute your flag is raised above a certain level, it attracts attention.”
The couple’s eldest son, Bhanu, who was also born in Delhi before emigrating with his parents to the UK, followed in his father’s footsteps by launching Alpha Aviation Group, an international pilot training provider, in the mid-2000s.
He now runs the family’s equity firm, C&C Alpha Group. A subsidiary of this company, Shanti Hospitality Group, runs 24 hotels worldwide, including Ananda in the Himalayas, various Hyatt Hotels and Nidra Hotels.
The Choudhrie family has also been prolific supporters of the UK Liberal Democrats. Some estimates suggest the family has reportedly donated up to £1 million to the party.
(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)
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