New Delhi: Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has asked Interpol's Italy branch to verify an address and a telephone number, which the agency believes to be of the main accused in the Rs 64 crore Bofors payoff scam, Ottavio Quattrocchi.

CBI sent the communique to Interpol Rome after the latter assured it of trying to trace Quattrocchi, seven months after he had left Malaysia for a "few days", highly-placed CBI sources said.

"We will trace him and we do not know where he is," was the reply sent by Interpol Rome in reply to a request to arrest Quattrocchi by the CBI.

The sources said the CBI has now asked the Interpol Rome to verify an address at Sungontenere Milan in the suburbs of the capital city of Italy.

The agency also passed on some telephone numbers to them for verification, the sources said.

Quattrocchi was facing an extradition trial in Malaysia. However, after the CBI's appeal was quashed by the lower court and High Court in Kuala Lumpur, the Italian businessman left that country, saying he would be back after finishing his work. The CBI believed him to be in Italy.

The CBI, which was being represented by the Malaysian Home Department, went into appeal in the Court of Appeals (Supreme Court) against the verdict, but failed to get a favourable verdict.

The case is now pending before a larger Bench of the Court of Appeals in Malaysia.

PTI