Income Tax department officials have made sensational revelations in the midst of their massive search operations on bullion traders in the national capital.
According to a Times of India report, during search operations on 12 shops, eight residential premises of four bullion traders in Karol Bagh and Chandni Chowk on Friday night, officials unearthed unaccounted sales of gold worth Rs 250 crore.
The report said I-T officials today interrogated the four bullion dealers and found that they had allegedly exchanged banned tender amounting to over Rs 250 crore with gold bars.
"Preliminary findings reveal (that) these four bullion traders had facilitated conversion of banned currencies of around Rs 250 crore into bullion through multiple bank accounts," a senior I-T official told the daily.
All four bullion dealers had their shops in Kucha Mahajani area of old Delhi and a few in Karol Bagh, it said, adding that officials are also investigating bank accounts of the four and some shell companies.
The report said that the bullion traders received money in banned currency notes and deposited them in three bank accounts of shell companies.
"These are new cases which have come to light and the modus operandi is similar to the previous cases that the I-T department had unearthed soon after demonetisation," the official added.
The ED has already registered a money laundering case in the matter and arrested two intermediaries and two bank managers.
Earlier, in three separate cases, the I-T, Enforcement Directorate and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence had found sales of at least Rs 400 crore worth of unaccounted bullion in the capital.
