India / I-T Dept raids Chinese citizens and firms, finds ₹1,000 crore money laundering

New Delhi: The Income Tax Department Tuesday conducted searches at over 20 premises of Chinese entities in Delhi, Gurugram and Ghaziabad. The team found incriminating documents of hawala transactions and money laundering and also held a Chinese individual with fake Indian passport, allegedly representing multiple Chinese firms in India.

The searches also revealed a subsidiary of Chinese company took over Rs 1,000 crore "bogus advances from shell entities for opening business and retail showrooms in India", the income tax department said, adding it also unearthed documents related to hawala transactions.

The raids revealed that a few Chinese individuals and their Indian associates were running a money laundering racket worth Rs 1,000 crore.

They were involved in hawala transactions through a series of shell entities, the tax department said, adding it found that over 40 bank accounts were created through dummy entities in which the money was credited.

"Search operation revealed that at the behest of Chinese individuals, more than 40 bank accounts were created in various dummy entities, entering into credits of more than Rs 1,000 crore over the period," the tax department said.

The tax department has found the links to money laundering involving bank employees and chartered accountants.

"Incriminating documents of hawala transactions and money laundering with active involvement of bank employees and Chartered Accountants have been found as a result of the search action," the CBDT said adding evidences of foreign hawala transactions involving Hong Kong and US dollars have also been unearthed. Further investigations are under progress.