The Income Tax Department has unearthed a black money trail to the tune of Rs 252 crore in a search and seizure operations on two business groups of Nandurbar and Dhule districts of Maharashtra engaged in civil construction and land development respectively, according to information provided by the finance ministry on Tuesday.

The search action carried out on December 22 has also resulted in the seizure of unaccounted cash of more than Rs 5 crore and jewellery valued at Rs.5 crore.

As many as 25 premises of the two groups spread across Nanndurbar, Dhule and Nashik were covered in the tax raid.

Many incriminating documents, loose papers, and digital evidence have also been found.

The entities belonging to the first group, which is engaged in civil construction business, the undisclosed income works out to Rs 150 crore. The documents clearly reveal that they have resorted to large-scale suppression of taxable income by inflating their expenses, primarily by way of the claim of non-genuine sub-contract expenses and unverifiable old sundry creditors.

The search team has detected that these subcontracts have been awarded to family members and their employees who have not rendered services in this regard. Evidence has also been gathered about unrecorded expenses incurred in cash. 

In the case of the second group which is the business of real estate, it has been found that a substantial part of the land transactions have been carried out in cash and are not accounted for in the regular books of account. Incriminating documents which show receipt of ‘on-money’ on land transactions and cash loans exceeding Rs 52 crore have been found and seized.

Further investigations are in progress.

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