Gopalan Enterprises, nine jewellers raided in Bengaluru

BENGALURU: The Directorate of Income Tax (Investigation) on Friday raided the premises of Gopalan Enterprises, a prominent real estate group, and nine jewellers and bullion merchants in the city on Friday for alleged nondisclosure of unaccounted income and hoarding of cash.

“The I-T sleuths conducted a search and seizure operation at Gopalan’s head office on Richmond Road on Friday morning and allegedly seized incriminating documents and large amounts of undisclosed income. The raids are going on and it will take I-T sleuths some time to collect and analyse the seized records,” said an official source.

The jewellers and bullion traders were raided based on information that they were involved in exchanging gold bullion and jewellery for old currency, which helped tax evaders convert black money into white. It is alleged that the traders charged very high commission for conversion.

The survey found that unusually large number sales were made by the traders after demonetisation was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the night of November 8.  Apart from receipts in RTGS in their accounts, there were also big cash deposits. All cash transactions were kept below Rs 2 lakh to avoid TDS and mandatory quoting of purchasers’ PAN. The I-T sleuths detected undisclosed income of Rs 47.74 crore.

Large cash deposits in bank accounts after demonetisation have been noticed in these cases. It is found that some of these jewellers have backdated the bills and even paid VAT to make the transactions a look genuine. It was also found that in some cases, the traders had shown lower sales in previous years.  The raids on Friday resulted in detection of undisclosed income of Rs 47.74 crore.  

In another case, acting on a tipoff that old notes were being converted at the residence of a businessman running a transport business, Income-tax Department officials conducted a search in a village in Anekal Taluk.

The information was the businessman had new currency, which he was ready to exchange for old currency. The IT  team, split into two groups and stationed near the residence. One of the officials from the team entered the house, disguised as a person trying to exchange the old currency note.

He entered into a conversation with the businessman in the house. As soon as it was confirmed that the businessman was converting cash, the group waiting at some distance was signalled. The teams entered the house and recovered '1.15 crore, of which Rs 1.07 crore was in new currency.