The focus on the mine owners seems to be hotting up. After successful raids at two leading hotel chains and restaurants in the City recently, the Directorate of Investigation (Income Tax), Karnataka and Goa circles has again cracked the whip on the mine czars, at Hospet this time.
According to highly placed sources, the DI (I-T), raided two mine owners, who are also into money lending at Hospet, on Tuesday morning, and unearthed concealed income of around Rs 12 crore. From one of them, they seized hard cash of Rs 2.5 crore. They also found a lot of incriminating documents from both of them.
The raids which began on Tuesday morning, continued till the wee hours on Wednesday. IT sleuths had been keeping a hawk’s eye on the two groups and acting on credible information and their own intelligence inputs, swooped down on them. Both the raided groups later confessed to concealed income of around Rs 12 crore. The assessment is still going on.
When contacted, the Director General, Income Tax (Investigation), BR Sudhakara confirmed the raids but refused to furnish details. He said mining is one of the prominent revenue generating sectors in Karnataka.
In October last year, the DI had conducted search and seizure operations on mine owners in Bellary and unearthed concealed income of more than Rs 110 crore.
The raids conducted at the hoteliers’ premises in Bangalore have so far yielded concealed income of Rs 16 crore. In between, the department sleuths had also raided the premises of a prominent builder in the City, and unearthed huge amounts of unaccounted income. They also seized around Rs 60 lakh in cash.