Veerendra

James Bond-style

Karnataka

gold

Challakere

Chitradurga

Sandalwood

You would assume that a multimillionaire casino owner, who wants to build an impressive secret chamber to hide his unaccounted wealth, would pay handsomely for the work. Not KC, apparently. The businessman-turned-politician — in whose bathroom income-tax officials found Rs 5.7 crore unaccounted cash on Friday — struck a hard bargain with the labourers while getting the secret vault made. It was not digital surveillance orspying that brought the officials to his doorstep, but a disgruntled, underpaid labourer.“The labourer was referred to Veerendra by one his associates in Goa. However, since he was not paid well for the job, the labourer on his return talked of how miserly Veerendra was when it came to paying workers, and that too for constructing such cash vaults in the bathroom and bedrooms. It was this associate who informed the I-T officials in Goa about the house inwith secret chambers to store unaccounted cash,” a source told Bangalore Mirror.Recently, when the news was being flashed on the raids being carried out across the country, unearthing huge hidden stashes ofand cash, one of the labourers, who had been referred for the job to Veerendra by an acquaintance in Goa, recalled how they had designed such secret vaults in Karnataka at Veerendra’s place too.Veerendra, a businessman who runs casinos in Goa and is said to be involved in betting, had constructed three houses inindistrict for himself and his two brothers.In one of these houses, I-T officials had found Rs3.5 crore in new Rs2,000 notes, 28 kg bullion and 4 kg jewellery — a total of Rs5.7 crore.Interestingly, there were four such secret vaults.Veerendra and his family had recently moved into the house after a grand house-warming function that saw VIPs from politics andon the guest list.Meanwhile, the Chitradurga police said that the income-tax department has issued a notice to Veerendra to appear before it. Once he appears before them, people involved and ones behind the new currency notes, will come out, said an official.