NEW DELHI, SEPT 3: Investigations in the Rs 133 crore urea scam have run into rough weather as A E Pinto, the London-based Brazilian broker who represented the urea scam-tainted Turkish firm `Karsan', has moved a London court against his extradition, official sources said today.Pinto moved court in the last week of August pleading innocence and urged not to be extradited to India, the sources told newsmen.Pinto, an agent of Karsan Company, is charged with having received a total of about seven lakh dollars from Swiss bank accounts, in which almost the entire deal amount of Rs 133 crore was paid in advance by the public sector National Fertilizer Limited (NFL) for the supply of two lakh tonnes of urea which never reached India.The CBI is in the process of preparing requisite documents for his early extradition, the sources said.Hoping that the extradition process would be completed soon, sources said with his arrest, the agency would be able to take its investigation into the urea scam to itslogical conclusion.Extradition proceedings for Pinto were initiated in December 1997.The CBI has alleged that seven lakh dollars were transferred to London's Barclays Bank account of `Brazil Trading Company', owned by Pinto, from Swiss Bank accounts in two installments of five and two lakhs each.These amounts were transferred in December 1995 soon after the urea import deal was signed a month earlier, CBI alleged. The firm was also wound up last year.Searches were conducted at Pinto's London residence and office premises by the city police, following a request by the CBI through the Interpol.Pinto, who had travelled to India several times after the deal was signed, had struck a deal with NFL in July 1995 for urea supply. This deal, which was signed by him, however, did not fructify, the sources said.It was Sambasiva Rao who later struck the Rs 133 crore urea import deal between Karsan and NFL.Pinto spent about a month in prison on charges of violating traffic laws in London lastyear.The CBI chargesheeted nine people, including the former NFL managing director and two top executives of Karsan Limited, in the scam on December 26 last.
