IT raid at Jaipur jeweller reveals secret tunnel with art jewellery, antiques

IT department claims to have found undisclosed transactions worth more than ₹1,400 crore during raids at the three firms.

An income tax department raid at three firms in Jaipur has not only revealed an unaccounted income of ₹1400 crores but also led to unearthing of a secret tunnel-type cavity at a jeweller’s house, containing art jewellery and antique goods apart from benami property transaction documents, officials said.

“During the raid at the jeweller’s house, a secret tunnel-type structure was discovered. Inside, documents related to benami properties were found in addition to gold and silver jewellery, antique goods and art jewellery. 15 sacks were also recovered from this secret room,” said an I-T official.

He added that the jeweller had denied maintaining any stock register before the raid but the raiding teams found actual prices were mentioned in an alpha-numeric secret code on each item found in the tunnel. The team is working on cracking the code. Two hard-disks and a pen-drive were also found, the official said.

The January 21 raids, conducted at 31 premises belonging to a jewellery firm and two real-estate developers based in Jaipur, have turned out to be the biggest in the state with the unearthing of undisclosed transactions worth more than ₹1,400 crore.

“During the search, a plethora of incriminating documents and digital data, in the form of unaccounted receipts, unexplained development expenses, unexplained assets, cash loans and advances, on-money receipts were found and seized. Total unaccounted transactions amounting to ₹650 crore have been detected, so far in this group,” CBDT said in a statement in reference to one of the raided firms.

The other real estate group to be raided is involved in the development of commercial centres, farm houses, townships and residential enclaves.

“It was found that the assessee group had taken over a real-estate project at the airport plaza by showing an investment of ₹1 lakh only in the books of account, whereas the WIP (closing stock) of the project, reflected in the balance sheet, was about ₹133 crore,” the statement by the CBDT said.

“The group had also advanced unaccounted cash loans to various persons amounting to ₹19 crore and is also earning unaccounted interest on the same. Total unaccounted transactions amounting to ₹225 crore have been detected so far,” the CBDT statement said about the firm.

The statement alleges that the raided jewellery firm was also found to be possessing a benami property apart from suppressing sales figures.

“Documents relating to benami property of ₹15 crore were also found from the secret chamber. A perusal of these incriminating documents, data and the regular books of account revealed that the assessee had been suppressing the sales figures– ranging from 100% -150% on the items sold to foreign tourists,” it said.

The jeweller group had also advanced unaccounted cash loans to various persons amounting to ₹122.67 crore and was also earning unaccounted interest on the same, it said.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times