The income tax department has taken major action in Jalna against black money in the first week of August 2022 in which unaccounted assets worth Rs 390 crores have been recovered so far. A number of teams from the IT department carried out the search operations at residences, properties, and factories of various steel industrialists in Jalna from 1st August 2022 to 8th August 2022. The recovered assets include Rs 58 crores in cash, 32 kilograms of gold, diamonds worth crores, and documents related to properties worth more than Rs 300 crores.
The income tax department conducted searches at many locations at the same time deploying various squads. The department looked into the three rolling mills at the new MIDC, as well as the financial transactions associated with them. The people raided include a major property developer and businessman from Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar (Aurangabad).
Maharashtra | Income Tax conducted a raid at premises of a steel, cloth merchant & real estate developer in Jalna from 1-8 Aug. Around Rs 100 cr of benami property seized – incl Rs 56 cr cash, 32 kgs gold, pearls-diamonds & property papers. It took 13 hrs to count the seized cash pic.twitter.com/5r9MHRrNyR
— ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2022
The income tax department officers disguised themselves as wedding guests so that no one knew they were on their way for the raid. Income tax officers arrived in Jalna in vehicles decorated with ‘Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge’ stickers. The fleet had 260 officers and 120 vehicles. The raids began on August 1 and the process lasted eight days.
Jalna is well-known in Maharashtra for its steel industry. However, the income tax department has brought the illicit steel manufacturing sector to light. The income tax authorities raided the steel manufacturing firms’ homes, farms, and offices. The fact that these four large steel factories in Jalna received extra revenue from transactions totaling millions of rupees and cashed these transactions was not documented. As a result, the income tax department carried out its raid in a very covert manner.
The squad initially came up empty-handed. However, as the squad raided a farmhouse outside of town, chaos set in. Money was discovered in bundles under the beds and in the cupboard. Huge cash was discovered at three factory workers’ residences. Additionally, gold ornaments, gold bricks, gold biscuits, coins, and diamonds were unearthed. 32 kilograms of gold in total were recovered. Unaccounted assets worth Rs 300 crore were also discovered in these raids.
In Aurangabad, two businessmen were also raided. They were found to have 58 crores in cash. There were 25 cloth bags filled with bundles of notes. The local state bank was then visited to count the entire amount. Around 11 am, the counting began, and it was completed at 1 pm.
