Nearly 100 locations of the sand mining companies have been raided
Highlights
- Four sand mining companies faced massive tax raids
- Firms accused of exporting beach minerals and routing money abroad
- Channel owned by VV Mineral of S Vaikundarajan raided
Four sand mining companies faced massive tax raids at nearly 100 locations in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh this morning for allegedly exporting beach minerals and routing money abroad.
News 7 Tamil, a channel owned by VV Mineral or VVM of S Vaikundarajan, was also raided. The other businessmen have been identified as Sukumar, Chandresan and Manikandan.
The tax officials said they raided the companies based on intelligence inputs that the miners have been exporting beach minerals despite a ban. The companies have also been routing money abroad, the officials said.
On its website, VVM says its huge annual output of 7 lakh tonnes of heavy minerals include garnet abrasive and zircon "due to our control of a 40 km beach area..."
Some of the properties where the tax raids happened are in Chennai, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Karaikal in Tamil Nadu, and Vishakhapatnam and Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh, officials said.
Tax officials said illegal profit earned by the companies was subsequently added into investments in other businesses of these groups such as spinning and sugar mills and hotels. They said some overseas transactions by these companies, made in alleged violation of tax laws, are also under the scanner.