Income Tax raids on 2 Mumbai real estate firms reveal unaccounted income of ₹184 cr: PIB

The Income Tax Department conducted search and seizure operations on two real estate business firms in Mumbai and certain individuals and entities allied with them, exposing unaccounted income of about ₹184 crore in their possession. The raids began on October 7 on 70 premises spread across Mumbai, Pune, Baramati, Goa, and Jaipur. The department informed about the involvement of an "influential family" of Maharashtra in the matter.

The statement stated that the evidence collected during the search operations exhibited multiple unaccounted, Benami transactions.

"A preliminary analysis of the flow of funds indicates that there has been an introduction of unaccounted funds in the group by way of various dubious methods like the introduction of bogus share premium, suspicious unsecured loans, receipt of unsubstantiated advance for certain services, collusive arbitration deals out of non-existent disputes, etc," the department of Income Tax said in a release. 

"It has been observed that such suspicious flow of funds has taken place with the involvement of an influential family of Maharashtra," added the release.

Illicit money used in the purchase of various assets

The department said that the business group, with the illicit funds acquired, dubiously purchased various assets such as office building at a prime locality in Mumbai, flat in a posh locality in Delhi, a resort in Goa, agricultural lands in Maharashtra, and investments in sugar mills. "The book value of these assets aggregates to about Rs. 170 crore," the department stated.

The department has seized unaccounted cash worth a whopping ₹2.13 crore and jewellery of ₹4.32 crore.

I-T department raids multiple cities across the country

Several raids were conducted by the Income Tax Department in some major states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh. The I-T department was suspicious that there were groups and individuals from various businesses associated with a huge web of undisclosed foreign bank accounts and assets.

The finance ministry released a statement saying that these groups/individuals utilised the services of a Dubai-based financial service provider to create a dubious and complex web of foreign companies and trusts based in tax havens such as Mauritius, the UAE, The British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar to hold their unaccounted assets.

Image: PTI/UNSPLASH/REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE

Source: PIB