Serious Fraud Office opens bribery investigation into defence firm that supplies weapons to Ukraine

An probe is nether mode into the France-based defence institution Thales for suspected bribery and corruption, the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has announced.

A connection said a associated probe involving the SFO's French counterparts was nether mode though it did not item immoderate allegations beyond the suspected offences.

Although based successful Paris, the multi-national aviation and defence electronics radical employs much than 7,000 radical successful the UK.

It has been progressive successful providing weapons to Ukraine and successful September agreed a £162m declaration with the UK authorities to proviso 650 Lightweight Multirole Missiles from its tract successful Belfast.

It was reported successful June that constabulary successful France, the Netherlands and Spain had searched institution offices implicit suspicions of corruption linked to arms income abroad.

This breaking quality communicative is being updated and much details volition beryllium published shortly.

Please refresh the leafage for the fullest version.

You tin person Breaking News alerts connected a smartphone oregon tablet via the Sky News App. You tin besides travel @SkyNews connected X oregon subscribe to our YouTube channel to support up with the latest news.