IN Bureau

The Income Tax Department has unearthed black money to the tune of a whopping Rs 2,000 crore in search and seizure operations this week on an importer and trader of laptops, mobile phones and peripheral parts in the National Capital Region, Kolkata and Haryana, according to official information provided by the finance ministry.

“Though the value of imports declared at the port of entry by the use of shell entities in the past 3 years is about Rs. 20 crore, it is estimated that the actual value during this period could be more than Rs. 2000 crore, given the scale of massive under-valuation that has been detected,” the official statement said. 

The search of a container imported by the company at Kolkata Port showed that while the bill of lading declared the goods as ‘HDMI cables’ valued at Rs 3.8 lakh the actual consignment turned out to be high value items like laptops, mobile phones etc which are valued at Rs. 64 crore.

The modus operandi involves import of goods in the name of shell entities at under-valued and wrongful declaration of description of goods imported, with an intent to evade customs duty. Upon clearance at ports, such goods have been found to be distributed throughout India by way of out-of-books cash transactions.

The wealth, so generated, has been used for acquisition of high value immovable properties and stashed away in foreign bank accounts, the Income Tax Department said. 

During the course of the search, several incriminating documents, diaries and digital evidence has been found which reveal that the group is entrenched into large scale under-invoicing and wrongful declaration of goods imported by it. Evidence indicating unrecorded transactions, unaccounted investment in properties, bogus loans taken, etc. have also been gathered.

The evidence found and seized during the course of the search reveals that the payments for such under-invoiced goods to the foreign consigners have been made through hawala channels. Most of the business has been found to be run through such modus-operandi.

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