Income Tax Dept. unearths Rs 200 crore black money trail in raid on Mumbai contractors with global hawala links

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The Income Tax Department has unearthed a black money trail to the tune of Rs 200 crore in search and seizure operations on leading contractors executing projects of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), according to an official statement.</p>
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Evidence of their involvement in international hawala transactions and routing of ill-gotten money to certain foreign jurisdictions have also been recovered, the Income Tax Department stated.</p>
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During the search operation, undisclosed cash of Rs. 2 crore and jewellery of Rs. 1.5 crore have also been seized so far. The tax raid was carried out on Feb 25 across more than 35 premises in Mumbai.</p>
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During the course of the search operation, numerous incriminating documents, loose sheets and digital evidence have been seized.</p>
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Particulars of about three dozen immovable properties, the value of which could be more than Rs. 130 crore have also been detected. It includes properties acquired either in their name or their associates or benamidars. Loose sheets and excel files with details of unaccounted cash receipts and payments aggregating to several crores have also been found and seized, which have not been recorded in the regular books of account. </p>
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In the case of contractors, the seized documents reveal the modus-operandi adopted by them for large-scale suppression of taxable income by inflating their expenses. For this purpose, the prominent recourse is over-invoicing of sub-contract expenses through a maze of entities and by claiming non-genuine expenses.  Certain instances show that cash has been taken out from these entities and the same has been utilized for obtaining undue favours for awarding of contracts and also for making unaccounted payments for investments in properties.</p>
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Further investigations are still in progress in the case.</p>
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