The Central Bureau of Investigation 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 6.4 million Bofors payoff scam, Ottavio Quattrocchi.

The 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 in Delhi.

"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 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 the High Court in Kuala Lumpur, the Italian businessman left that country saying he would be back after finishing his work.

The CBI believes Quattrocchi is 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.

The CBI has also asked the London Police to facilitate freezing of Quattrocchi's bank account, having nearly Rs 21 crore (three million pounds).

The probe agency was informed by Interpol London that they had traced a 'bank account in the name of Ottavio Quattrocchi in which three million pounds had been stashed'.

The CBI was also awaiting a formal notice from London in pursuance of its plea requesting for freezing of the bank account pending the Letters Rogatory.

The CBI claimed the amount of three million pounds stashed in the bank account was a part of 73.43 lakh dollars paid to Quattrochhi by A B Bofors through A E Services.