Chickens are coming home to roost for the corrupt. India’s crackdown on scams took a quantum leap on Wednesday when AgustaWestland middleman Christian Michel was detained in Dubai by local authorities on the request of Indian agencies.

Michel, a British businessman, is likely to be handed over to the Indian authorities shortly, according to reports. He faces charges of siphoning off Rs 330 crores in chopper deals. Senior-most defence officers have been implicated in the Agusta case, and the top leadership of the previous UPA government had come under it shadow, facing serious charges of accepting kickbacks in the deal.

The 56-year-old Michel is one of the three middlemen allegedly involved in the scam regarding the payment of bribes to secure an Indian contract for 12 AW-101 helicopters worth euro 556 million (Rs 4,300 crore).

His name cropped up again after a recent judgement, in the case related to the scam, by the Italian court of appeals, which cited a note from the middleman reportedly describing Congress president Sonia Gandhi as the “driving force” behind the chopper deal.