Income Tax Dept Raid – Rs 10 Crore in old notes Seized from Chennai bizman’s house.

Income Tax Dept Raid – Rs 10 Crore in old notes Seized from Chennai bizman’s house.

Income tax investigation wing officials raided three apartments at Sowcarpet and Periamet in the city on Monday and seized Rs 10 crore in demonetised currency notes and 6kg gold.

The raids come a week after I-T wing sleuths raided the premises of businessman Sekhar Reddy and two others in Chennai and Vellore.

“Following information that some people in north Chennai were planning to exchange old currency notes, we raided the three apartments belonging to an imitation gold jewellery businessman called Arjun Kumar Hirani,” said an I-T official. “Monday’s raids are not connected to Sekhar Reddy but we are checking whether Hirani is a hawala trader,” he added.

With only 12 days to go for exchanging the demonetised notes, many businessmen and individuals in the city are hoping to deposit them or exchange them for gold with jewellers. “In raids held in November, we found that some of the jewellers were hawala traders too,” said an I-T official.

On November 11, the I-T wing raided 12 jewellers at Broadway.

“The jewellers were involved in bullion trade.Jewellery businesses were under the watch of our wing for hoarding bullion and cash. They were issued notice asking them to join the Income Disclosure Scheme (IDS) which ended on September 30, but they did not respond,” the official said.

With only 12 days to go for exchanging the demonetised notes, many businessmen and individuals in Chennai are hoping to deposit them or exchange them for gold with jewellers.

“As the last day for exchanging comes to a close, we are watching several individuals and companies. In the coming days too there will be raids to prevent people from exchanging black money ,” he said.

Since demonetisation was announced on November 8, there have been many income tax dept raids in Chennai on jewellers, businessmen, college owners and others. “The raid on the premises of Sekhar Reddy and two others is the biggest so far.

It went on for more than 3 days in Chennai and Vellore and in the final account we seized Rs130.5 crore in old and new currencies and 177 kg gold worth Rs50.5 crore,” said the official.The case has been taken over by the enforcement department and CBI. A raid on an engineering college on November 19, found the owner deposited Rs8crore in the bank accounts of 400 employees.

Source: TOI