The war in the media and social media over the money recovered or found to have been siphoned of layered through multiple entities or shell companies during the IT raids in AP and other places seems to be wrong.
It is neither Rs 2 lakh as being claimed by the TDP supporters nor Rs 2,000 crore as said in the press release of the IT Department on February 13.
We have missed another release of the IT department on the previous day, February 11, where it found Rs 3,300 crore siphoned of by way of bogus contracts or the shell companies.
The IT officials have conducted raids on 42 premises across Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Erode, Pune, Agra and Goa ‘on a group of persons and companies in issuing bogus bills and carrying on hawala transactions.’
The IT officials have claimed that they have unearthed ‘evidences of cash payment of more than Rs 150 crore to a prominent person in Andhra Pradesh.’
“The search action was successful in unearthing incriminating evidences and establishing the nexus between big corporates, hawala operators and identification of entire chain of delivery, as well as siphoning of funds by way of bogus contracts to the tune of Rs 3,300 crore. Unexplained cash of Rs 4.19 crore jewelry in excess of Rs 3.2 crore was also seized during the search operations,” said the IT press release on November 11, 2020.
The second release of the IT department on February 13, 2020, claimed that searches were carried out in Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Kadapa, Visakhapatnam, Delhi and Pune. ‘More than 40 premises were covered’ this time.
“Preliminary estimates suggest siphoning of more than Rs 2000 crore through transactions that were layered through multiple entries with the last in the chain being small entities with turnover less than Rs 2 crore to avoid maintenance of books of accounts and tax audit etc,” the second release said.
It also pointed out that “such entities were either not found at their registered address or were found to be shell entities.”
The release also said that “FDI receipts of several crores in the group companies of one of the infrastructure companies is suspected to be round-tripping of its unaccounted funds.”
In the second release, the IT officials have admitted to have recovered “unexplained cash of Rs 85 lakh and jewelry worth Rs 71 lakh,” besides restraining 25 bank lockers.
“The search action included three prominent infrastructure groups based in AP and TS. Investigations led to busting of a major racket of cash generation through bogus sub-contractors, over-invoicing and bogus billing. Several incriminating documents and loose papers were found and seized during the search, apart from emails, WhatsApp messages and unexplained foreign transactions.”
So, the two press releases of the IT officials point an accusing finger at those whose premises were raided or searched and who were linked to them.
The amount in the two raids that was siphoned of is worth Rs 5,300 crore for which evidences were not available and unexplained cash and jewelry wroth Rs 8 crore was seized.
