In what could be yet another scam, now involving the airline manufacturer Boeing, a New York Times report has claimed that when Boeing was prepping its new 787 Dreamliner rollout in 2006, it might have bribed some eight Indian officials to mine the much-needed lightweight titanium from India.

According to the report, “Boeing asked (consulting firm) McKinsey to evaluate a proposal, potentially worth $500 million annually, to mine titanium in India through a foreign partnership financed by an influential Ukrainian oligarch.”

NYT claims that McKinsey says it advised Boeing of the risks of working with the oligarch, Dmitry V Firtash, and recommended “character due diligence.” Attached to its evaluation was a single PowerPoint slide: The partner’s plan, McKinsey noted, was to “respect traditional bureaucratic process including use of bribes.”

McKinsey also apparently wrote that the partner had identified eight “key Indian officials”, also named in the PowerPoint slide, whose influence was needed for the deal to go through. However, nowhere in the slide did McKinsey advise that such a scheme would be illegal or unwise.

NYT says that McKinsey declined to provide it with its full report or any evidence that it had objected to the paying of bribes, but that Firtash denies paying or recommending bribes.

The mining venture never materialised, but Firtash was indicted on charges of directing $18.5 million in bribes to Indian officials for mining permits, the report adds, also noting that neither McKinsey nor Boeing was charged in the case, and Boeing has not been accused of paying bribes.

Meanwhile in India, while it has emerged that the state in question was Andhra Pradesh, it is yet unclear who these officials were that had been shortlisted on that slide and whether they were investigated following Firtash’s indictment in 2012.