Mumbai: The Income Tax (IT) Department conducted raids on an Angadia, a traditional banking system for transfer of valuables, in the cotton city of Akola on Wednesday. The IT crackdown follows the four day raid and searches on Bhandari brothers at Nanded for unaccounted assets of nearly 170 crores including cash of nearly 14 crores and 8 kg of gold.
The tax raids and searches underway on Ashokraj Angadia Courier Service at Kothadi Bazar, Akola were conducted by Income Tax Department, Nagpur for suspected hawala transactions.
The taxmen suspect huge amounts of cash were transferred by the Angadia in hawala transactions linked to the business entities of Bhandari brothers running unlisted chit funds, micro finance, leasing, gold loan and real estate firms.
The hawala services being utilised by several entrepreneurs, traders and coaching classes were under the scanner for unaccounted income and tax evasion.