Maharashtra: Rs 56 cr cash, jewellery worth Rs 14 cr seized by I-T sleuths in search ops on two business groups

The Income Tax (I-T) Department had carried out a search operation on August 03, on two major groups engaged in the manufacturing of steel TMT Bars. The search operation covered more than 30 premises spread over Jalna, Aurangabad, Nashik and Mumbai. So far, the search operation has resulted in seizure of unaccounted cash of Rs 56 crore, and bullion and jewellery worth Rs 14 crore, agency officials revealed on Thursday. The agency refused to divulge identity of the entities searched, stating investigation was on.

According to the sources, after having received information about the entities being involved in alleged tax evasion, the I-T officials planned a discreet operation and several teams comprising tax officials had reached premises where searches were to be conducted in about 60 decorated vehicles to make it look that the vehicles were part of some wedding procession at Jalna. Sources also said that when the officials stumbled upon huge stash of cash during searches, they had to use note counting machines and it took them several hours to ascertain total amount of notes seized. Over 170 officials were believed to have been involved in the operations, sources said.

"During the course of the search operation, several incriminating evidences have been found and seized. The initial analysis of seized evidences of both the groups has revealed that they were engaged in large scale tax evasion, resorting to inflation of expenditure through bogus purchases from several entities. These entities have also been found to be involved in GST frauds. Evidence has also been found of excess stock of raw materials, not recorded in the books of account, exceeding Rs 120 crore," the agency officials claimed.

"Examination of evidences in one of the groups further reveals that it has indulged in layering its unaccounted income through bogus unsecured loans and share premium, obtained from Kolkata based shell companies.

The search team has also detected large number of lockers of both the groups, opened in the names of employees of the companies, which were maintained with a Co-operative Bank. During the search operation, more than 30 bank lockers, including several lockers in the Co-operative Bank, were searched. Huge unaccounted cash and gold jewellery has been found and seized from these lockers. Furthermore, substantial amount of unaccounted cash has been seized from a secret room located on the farm house belonging to one of the groups," the officials claimed.

Published on: Thursday, August 11, 2022, 07:21 PM IST