For the second consecutive day, the Income Tax department authorities have been conducting searches in the offices and residences of Tollywood film producers including Naveen Yerneni and Ravi Shankar Yelamanchili of Mythri Movie Makers and Dil Raju.
According to sources, the I-T department sleuths are also questioning the financiers who put in their money in the production of high-budget films like Pushpa-2, Game Changer, Daku Maharaj and Sankrantiki Vasthunnam, by these producers.
The I-T department authorities also conducted searches on the offices of Mango Media, a film promoting company, owned by Rama Krishna Veerapaneni, husband of popular Telugu singer Sunitha.
Sources said the authorities found a huge gap between the actual collections of these films at the box office and the income tax they have paid to the department.
They have also found from the records that these producers had underplayed the investment made on these films.
What is more interesting is that the department has focussed on the reports of flow of money from foreign investors into these production houses.
Apparently, these producers had routed their own black money into their companies through foreign route in the name of foreign investments.
They are also looking into possible flow of money from the US and other countries into these houses through hawala mode.
“If they found any such transactions, they will hand over the case to the Enforcement Directorate,” sources said.
