TMC paid little-known company Rs 160 crore to buy a jet & helicopter

ED investigation into a Kolkata-based aviation company.

NEW DELHI: An ED investigation into a Kolkata-based aviation company has found that the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress allegedly funded Rs 160 crore from the party’s coffers to a little-known firm, Carewell Aviation India Pvt Ltd, to buy an Embraer jet and an Agusta VIP helicopter, which it subsequently rented out to TMC for Rs 187 crore.Sources said the money laundering probe was focused on TMC providing an interest-free security deposit of Rs 88.5 crore to the aviation company, which had no funds to buy the jet and the chopper it then gave to the party on rent. As soon as it received the security deposit, Carewell Aviation transferred it to its offshore entity, Carewell Flyjet IFSC Pvt Ltd, registered in Gujarat’s Gift City, treated as foreign territory, for further purchase of the jet and the helicopter.Another fund transfer of over Rs 16 crore from Cayman Island and related to the deal is under investigation.TMC was required to pay Rs 186.9 crore, exclusive of GST, for using the jet over 72 months and the chopper for 56 months. Although it did not fully utilise the minimum guaranteed flying hours under the charter agreement, the party went on to hire aircraft and helicopters from other companies during this period (2021-26) for a sum of Rs 149 crore, sources said.When contacted, a TMC source said, “Since the matter is sub judice, we do not want to comment.”The “suspicious” nature of transactions has led ED to delve into the issue of why TMC paid an interest-free security deposit of Rs 88.5 crore when it had to pay charges for renting the aircraft and helicopter. The agreement provided that TMC pay a minimum monthly charge of Rs 90 lakh for the aircraft and Rs 60 lakh for the helicopter.Carewell Aviation came into being only a few months after TMC returned to office for the third time after the April 2021 assembly elections. Then, after losing the assembly polls in 2026, TMC paid three months advance rental to the company to cover the period till Sept 2026: something that the agency says is contrary to the norm.Sources said ED has questioned directors of Carewell Aviation over these transactions and recorded their statements on issues such as why it charged TMC Rs 16.5 lakh per flying hour for the jet and when it billed others, who had not helped it with something as crucial as a security deposit, a much lower amount of Rs 7.6 lakh per hour for flying Embraer.Investigations also showed, sources said, that TMC paid Rs 75 lakh per flying hour to another charter service, Windborne Aviation, for hiring a Falcon 2000 aircraft. TMC used the Falcon aircraft for only about 11-12 flying hours but paid Rs 9.1 crore, which was roughly Rs 75.7 lakh per flying hour.According to sources, the money trail showed that over Rs 160 crore was transferred to Carewell Aviation and its group entities between July 2021 and June 2026 for “charter services” for the Embraer aircraft and the Agusta chopper. Investigators suspect the transaction to be an “artificial commercial arrangement” and a “calculated device”, bereft of any genuine actual financial rationale, considering that the two aircraft were allegedly purchased entirely out of the corpus received from TMC, and the two aviation assets were rented back to the party.