Income Tax Department has raided more than two dozen premises of three real estate developers, engaged in land development and construction activities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
"More than two dozen premises have been covered in search operation spread over Kurnool, Ananthapur, Kadapa, Nandyal, Bellary, etc," the Finance Ministry said in a release.
The release said the search action has so far led to the seizure of unaccounted cash of Rs 1.64 crore. It has also led to detection of unaccounted cash transactions to the tune of Rs 800 crore.
The search operation was conducted on January 5, 2022.
During the course of the search operations, several incriminating documents, such as handwritten books, agreements have been found and seized. Digital data has also been seized from a specialised software application as well as from other electronic gadgets.
"It has been found in the case of one of the assessee groups that it has been using a software which has been systematically modified to eliminate the unaccounted cash element of the consideration received and to record in the regular books of account the sale consideration that matches with registered sale price," the ministry said.
These groups have been found to be accepting cash over and above the registered value of the properties. Such unaccounted cash is used for payments of on-money towards the purchase of lands and incurring other expenditure, the release said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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