The Income-tax department has detected a "cash" turnover of Rs 600 crore in six months after it raided a Mumbai-based business group engaged in online cricket betting and gaming, the CBDT said on Friday.
The searches were carried out on February 15 at 29 premises located in Mumbai, Delhi, Surat, Jaipur, Pune and Kolkata.
The group was operating in a clandestine manner and had concealed its operations and income from law enforcement agencies, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement.
"Preliminary investigation has revealed cash turnover of more than Rs 600 crore in the last 6 months or so," it said.
"Listed securities worth more than Rs 550 crore and 30 bank accounts have been provisionally attached so far," the policy-making body for the tax department said.
Cash (including foreign currency) of Rs 3.08 crore and jewellery worth Rs 81 lakh has also been seized, it said.
It said the unidentified group operates from Mumbai and has a wide network of agents and area managers in different cities for collection of cash from large customer base who use the websites hosted on cloud servers by private operators.
"It was detected during the search that, after allotting IDs and passwords to the customers, points are credited into their accounts by agents/area managers after collecting cash from them. The cash is then sent to Mumbai through hawala operators," it said.
Handwritten notes, documents and digital "evidence" containing detailed account of daily cash transactions to be introduced in the books of account have been seized, the CBDT said.
The group has been introducing its "unaccounted cash" into books of account as unsecured loans, security premium, partner's capital, agricultural income, share transactions, commission and trading income, etc., in the form of accommodation entries or bogus entries, it said.
"This cash has been routed through several layers of shell companies controlled by the entry provider groups or through hawala channels. The amounts introduced in the books of account have been invested in real estate and securities market," it claimed.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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