(This story originally appeared in on Jan 4, 2017)

MULTI-PRONGED APPROACH

New Delhi: The income-tax department has roped in forensic experts from three of the Big Four accounting firms to investigate suspected money laundering by politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen, people directly aware of the matter said.Experts from EY, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers are working with tax officials to examine evidence collected by the department during raids conducted since November 8, when the government declared war on black money by demonetising.Rs 500 and .Rs 1,000 currency notes.Some of the people raided are suspected to have laundered money through accounting manipulations or brought in money parked overseas through the hawala route, a person involved in the investigations said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The department sought help from external investigators with the expertise to unravel such complex transactions.“Offenders may have used innovative ways to deposit unaccounted money by disguising receipts or transfers of funds as legitimate transactions,” said Rajiv Singh of Nalanda Law Associates. “But the existence of a money trail significantly increases the prospects of gathering incriminating evidence that could be used to prosecute them.”Post demonetisation , the highprofile people the IT department raided included Bahubali producers Shobu Yarlagadda and Prasad Devineni, two Karnataka government engineers alleged to be close to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and, more recently, the chief secretary of Tamil Nadu Spokespersons for EY, KPMG and PwC declined to comment when contacted by ET. In an emailed response, the commissioner of investigations at the Central Board of Direct Taxes, Ramesh Kumar Yadav, said: “Personally, I am not aware of any of the issues you wish to know.”People aware of the matter said the investigators were adopting a multi-pronged approach, which included scrutiny of the books of corporate entities linked to these individuals as well as data stored in computers seized during the raids, examination of bank statements and gathering of field intelligence to identify the authenticity of counter-parties with which transactions were recorded.The IT department has intensified its enforcement operations since demonetisation, conducting as