Income tax raid at Sarava Stores on Usman Road in T Nagar in January, 2019

CHENNAI: Income tax officials who searched Saravana Stores 'brahmandamai' and realty firms Lotus Group and GSquare in Chennai and Coimbatore for more than a week had to dig up some graveyards to unearth unaccounted cash, documents, gold and diamonds, worth several hundred crores of rupees.

In all, Rs 433-crore of unaccounted income has been unearthed at the three business establishments. About 25 crore in cash, 12 kg gold and 626 carats diamonds were also seized.

The simultaneous searches at 72 places belonging to Saravana Stores owner Yogarathinam Pondurai, his associate Ramajayam alias Bala, owner of Lotus Group and GSquare, and their associates would have come a cropper if not for the leads officials got about a vehicle carrying valuables and documents doing the rounds in Chennai. "Before our teams reached the spot, the assessees got information about the searches. Some police officials alerted owners of business establishments including Pondurai and Bala about possible I-T searches as heavy police protection had been sought and many cars were hired by the I-T department to transport officials," said a senior I-T official.

‘ Staff deleted records from computers’

The official said, “Pondurai and Bala put most documents, huge amount of cash, gold and diamonds in an SUV and instructed the driver to just keep driving across the city. Their staff deleted all records from the computers and CCTV footages. Following questioning, we came to know about the SUV carrying cash and valuables. We intercepted it with the help of police. Not much could be seized from the vehicle, but we got information about several bags of valuables buried in burial grounds and dumped in some buildings.”

In all, Rs 433 crore unaccounted income has been traced in the three business establishments. The sleuths also seized Rs 25 crore in cash, 12 kg gold and 626 carats diamonds.

The protracted operation ended only after 9 days. “We have got evidence of huge business transactions between Pondurai and Bala. About Rs 284 crore unaccounted income was traced in Pondurai’s business establishments and about Rs 149 crore was detected in the two firms owned by Bala,” he said.

The I-T department has engaged a team of IT professionals to reconstruct all the data deleted from the seized computers.

Pondurai, Bala, their partners and business associates were dealing in huge amount of cash, the official said. “A property worth Rs180 crore was bought by them, entirely using cash, in Chennai,” said the official.

It took sustained questioning to extract information from owners and employees of all the three companies, officials said.



In Video: Taxmen in Tamil Nadu dig up graveyard, unearth gold, diamond, cash