Income Tax Department Raids: The income department seized Rs 24crore in new currency notes on Saturday. Department has claimed that till now over Rs 142 crore unaccounted assets have been recovered in tax operations so far here.
I-T officials said the fresh seizure of new currency in Rs 2,000 notes was made by the sleuths from a car in Vellore on the persistence of the accused presently being interrogated in the case. The total seizure in the case has now gone up to Rs. 166crore in a single case.
The earlier department had seized Rs. 142crore undisclosed assets which includes about gold bars weighing 12kg and Rs 10crore in notes during raids at multiple locations in Chennai, for the last two days to check tax evasion.
This was the largest seizure of new currency notes in the country after the government declared high denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 100notes invalid on November 8. IT department conducted raids on eight premises of a group engaged in sand mining in Tamil Nadu.
“The group has sand mining licence for the entire state of Tamil Nadu. Eight premises (six residential and two offices) were covered in the search.”
I-T department said in statement it seized a large amount of unaccounted assets
“During the search, Rs. 96.89 crore cash in old high denomination notes and Rs. 9.63 crore in new Rs. 2000 currency notes along with gold weighing 127 kg worth approximately Rs. 36.29 crore were found and seized, as unaccounted assets,” the Central Board of Direct Taxes, the policy-making body for the I-T department, had said in a statement issued in Delhi.
It had added that the searches are “still in progress at four out of the total 8 premises and more specific details including modus operandi would emerge after examination of the documents and other evidence detected during the search.”
S Reddy, a contractor working with the state government told officials claiming that the whole money and the gold as his own and is being interrogated along with the five other people.
“This seizure of gold and cash was an unprecedented amount that the tax department has seized in recent, said a senior department official.
Department is conducting raids with the assistance of agencies
The department, the official said, the searches are carried out by the inputs of intelligence about the activities of Reddy and few others for the last few days. I-T department officials said the agency was investigating how he stashed the new notes in such a large quantity. The bundles of the new Rs 2000 notes were seized and had no banking slips on them and were cluttered up to mislead sleuths , they said.
The taxmen have been seized a number of documents related to financial transactions, entries of gold sale and records of sale/purchase, said the officials. Reddy is a contractor working with the state government and claiming the whole cash and gold to be his own. Further investigation is still going on, they had said.
