The Income Tax Department officials found crores of cash lying in bank lockers belonging to Hyderabad-based pharma major Hetero Drugs on Tuesday (today).
I-T sleuths have seized several bank lockers belonging to Hetero Drugs stacked with unaccounted money.
I-T sleuths opened these bank lockers on Tuesday and shocked to see cash ranging from Rs 1.50 crore to Rs 2 crore in each locker.
The lockers were opened in various bank branches located in Ameerpet, Secunderabad and Srinagar colony.
Officials seized Rs 30 crore so far from these lockers.
With this, the total cash seizure from Hetero Drugs increased to Rs 173 crore.
The I-T department alerady seized Rs 142.87 crore cash and detected “unaccounted” income of Rs 550 crore during raids last week.
It was found that the company purchased huge land parcels in Hyderabad with black money.
Hetero Drugs is one of the companies named in the chargesheet filed by CBI against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy in illegal assets and quid pro quo cases.
The I-T department transported the seized cash and documents in mini-trucks.
The raids were carried out at about 50 locations in 6 States.
During the search, several bank lockers have been found, out of which 16 lockers have been operated.
The I-T raids on the company concluded on Saturday (today).
The I-T department issued an official release on Saturday stating that the Hetero group is engaged in the business of manufacturing of intermediates, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and formulations. Majority of the products are exported to foreign countries i.e. USA, Europe, Dubai and other African countries.
During the searches, hideouts were identified where second set of books of accounts and cash were found. Incriminating evidence in the form of digital media, pen drives, documents, etc. have been found and seized. Incriminating digital evidence was gathered from SAP @ ERP software maintained by the assessee group.
During these searches, issues relating to discrepancies in purchases made from bogus and non-existent entities and artificial inflation of certain heads of expenditure were detected. Further, evidence of on-money payment for the purchase of lands was also found. Various other legal issues were also identified such as personal expenses being booked in the company’s books and land purchased by related parties below government registration value.
