 "Rs 351 crore & counting: The Jharkhand cash seizure and other big hauls in India")
The value of the “unaccounted” cash recovered by the Income Tax Department from the premises linked to Congress Rajya Sabha MP Dhiraj Sahu in Odisha and Jharkhand reached Rs 351 crore on Sunday. It is the highest-ever cash seizure made by an agency in the country as part of an action against a single group and entities linked to it, PTI sources say. The marathon raids against an Odisha-based distillery company, owned by Sahu’s family, began on 6 December. So far, the officials have finished counting 140 bags of cash out of a total of 176.
#WATCH | Balangir, Odisha: Currency counting machines brought in as the Income Tax Department raid at the premises of Boudh Distilleries Private Limited enter the 5th day.
— ANI (@ANI) December 10, 2023
Over Rs 200 Cr has been seized. Baldev Sahu Infra Pvt Ltd company which is a group company of Boudh… pic.twitter.com/MWQYFMI3BO
The counting involved nine teams of about 80 people from the tax department and various banks, working in shifts in a 24x7 cycle. Most of the cash was recovered from premises linked to Boudh Distillery Private Limited in Odisha. The maximum cache of currency, largely in ₹ 500 denomination, was recovered from the premises of the company in Bolangir district, according to the news agency.
You may think this is a Bank’s cash chest but it isn’t. This is the cash haul recovered from Rahul Gandhi’s close aide and Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP Dhiraj Prasad Sahu…
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) December 10, 2023
Congress must answer how much of this money was being sent to Delhi and the Gandhis?#CorruptionKiDukan pic.twitter.com/7QltPuv1XJ
The raids were launched by the taxman on charges of tax evasion and “off-the-book” transactions. According to India Today, Sahu’s extended family is involved in a major alcohol manufacturing business and he owns several such factories in Odisha. The department is also recording the statements of the executives and other staff who were present at the searched locations and will soon issue summonses to the main promoters of the company for recording their statements. Here’s a look at some of the biggest seizures in the past. Raids on Kanpur businessman (December 2019) The previous highest record of cash recovery was held by a Kanpur-based businessman Piyush Jain from whom cash amounting to ₹ 257 crore, gold, and documents of several properties from his house had been recovered in 2019. A raid, which lasted for over 120 hours, at the perfume trader’s residence was conducted by a joint team of the Income Tax and the Directorate General of GST Intelligence, as per PTI. The money was purportedly connected to the shipment of goods by a goods carrier using fake invoices and no e-way bills. According to another India Today report, every year or so, Piyush Jain used to change his watchmen. Piyush Jain only had two watchmen working for him at his Anandpuri bungalow, paying them Rs 7,500 a month, and they were not even permitted to enter.
Piyush jain was just businessman.. Sahu is businessman+politician.. Would be disappointing if cash recovered is less than 1000cr https://t.co/51NGT9MlJp
— @rvind (@arvnd56a) December 11, 2023
He used to live a simple life to avoid the notice of the public and tax investigators. Piyush Jain used to operate out of Ittarwali Gali, a prominent location for the trade of perfumes, in Kanpur. He maintained offices in Mumbai, Kanpur, and Kannauj. About 40 firms that Jain would use to conduct his business were discovered by the IT department during the operation in Kanpur. IT’s raid on road construction firm (2018) Another instance where cash amounting to ₹ 163 crore and nearly 100 kilogrammes of gold were unearthed by Chennai’s IT department during searches against road construction firm Ms SPK and Company in Tamil Nadu in July 2018, according to PTI. The raids were carried out after the department found “evidence of suspected tax evasion by the firm and its associates” that were believed to have political links, the senior IT official said. [caption id=“attachment_13490062” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] ₹ 163 crore and nearly 100 kilogrammes of gold were unearthed by Chennai’s IT department during searches against road construction firm Ms SPK and Company. ANI[/caption] The seized cash was kept in big travel bags and parked cars, the officials said, adding that dozens of gold biscuits were seized. A number of documents and computer hardware were also seized by the department, the officials said. IT raids on sand mining baron (2016) According to ANI, Tamil Nadu sand mining baron Shekar Reddy was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after Income Tax department officials found unaccounted crores of cash post demonetisation from the premises of office he owned. The IT officers raided eight sites in Chennai in December 2016 and found cash notes worth ₹ 106 crore, including over ₹ 10 crore in fresh bills and 127 kilogrammes of gold. Following an IT Department raid on his properties on 8 and 9 December, the merchant was expelled from Tirumala Tirupati Devasthana. Bahubali producer under IT scanner (2016) The movie that made the most money in 2015 was Bahubali: The Beginning. The film’s producer, Arka Media, came under scanner from the Income Tax Department due to the whopping ₹ 600 crore amount they made, reported The Hindu. The Quint reports that during an IT sleuth search on producers Shobhu Yarlagadda and Prasad Devineni’s Hyderabad homes, cash worth ₹ 60 crore was discovered hidden away by the producers in demonetised notes. IT raids on Delhi law firm (2016) When Delhi Police and Income Tax authorities raided the office of a law company called T&T on 10 December in the southern Delhi, they discovered over ₹ 13 crore in cash, of which ₹ 2.5 crore was in new currency notes, according to Business Today. The team from the Crime branch discovered seven crores of old ₹ 1,000 notes, ₹ 3 crores of old and new notes together.
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