IT raids on businessman leads to seizure of mountains of cash

New Delhi, Dec 24: A Kanpur businessman was raided by the Income Tax Department and cash of Rs 150 crore was recovered. The businessman, Piyush Jain is part of the perfume industry.

Images from the raid showed two mountains of cash stuffed into large wardrobes. The cash was wrapped in plastic covers and secured with a yellow tape. 30 such bundles were visible in each photograph.

Another photograph showed IT and GST officials squatting on a sheet spread in the middle of a room which was surrounded by more piles of cash. They were seen sitting with a note counting machine.

Raids which began on Thursday are also going on at Mumbai and Gujarat. The raids were initiated by the Goods and Services Tax officials for tax evasion. After the GST officials unearthed the details, the IT department was also called in.

Officials said that the money was linked with the dispatch of goods through fake invoices and without any e-way bills. Imaginary firms were used to create these fake invoices.

Officials who seized four trucks also said that these invoices were for Rs 50,000 each and more than 200 such invoices were created without GST payments. These were found in four trucks parked inside Jain's warehouse.

"A case of fake invoicing and fake credit reported. GST law is that if your invoice is more than a certain limit then you have to generate invoices. In search we found an item on which GST tax rate is of 28% plus cess," said Vivek Johri, Chairman, CBIC on Kanpur search.

"Those involved were dispatching material without any invoice and e-way bills. 2-3 parties are involved in this. All the invoices we found were fake. Value of the item suppressed," he added.