New Delhi: The Income Tax Department has unearthed black money worth Rs 900 crore following search and seizure operations conducted on two groups mainly running an educational institute and a distillery in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry region. An official said this on Wednesday.
Income tax officials have seized unaccounted cash worth Rs 32 crore and gold coins worth Rs 28 crore in the raids conducted on October 5.
These groups are also running other businesses like pharmaceuticals, hospitals and hotels etc. Around 100 premises were covered during the search operations in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Preliminary analysis so far has resulted in evidence collected of unaccounted fee receipts of over Rs 400 crore and false claims of disbursement of scholarships amounting to Rs 25 crore by educational institutions.
The Income Tax Department said in a statement that evidence seized in one group indicated that the trust was using the services of agents to attract students, for which unaccounted commission payments of about Rs 25 crore have been made.
Voluminous evidence has been seized regarding receipt of fees not recorded in the books of account and claims of non-actual distribution of scholarships.
A distillery business run by a group has been found to have claimed fraudulent expenditure of about Rs 500 crore for procurement of inputs like bottles, flavours, extra neutral alcohol and freight charges etc.
Such purchases are not confirmed by purchase invoices or entries in the stock register.
According to the official statement, several pieces of evidence have been recovered which show that checks were issued to various non-existent entities and were received back as cash for unaccounted investments and other expenses which were not related to the business. are not admissible as expenses.
The seized documents show that an amount of more than Rs 300 crore has been withdrawn from the trusts for personal expenses of the trustees or for deployment in various businesses.
The statement said this involves payment made by a group for the acquisition of an industrial unit in Andhra Pradesh.