MUMBAI, April 12: The Directorate of Investigation, Income Tax, Mumbai has achieved a record of sorts this fiscal year, surpassing its earlier figures of success in raids cases.In 111 raids conducted during the year, the directorate got admissions of concealed income of Rs 244.29 crore and seized assets worth Rs 46.10 crore. The total figure of admission is the highest in the directorates in the country.The searches this year covered a spectrum of business from custom clearing agents, custom house agents and cargo clearing agents, ad agencies, and producers of music cassettes and CDs, to the up-country onion and potato traders, inland hawala operators, traders in milk and milk products, manufacturers of pens and refills, stevedores and transport operators, civil contractors, importers of pharmaceutical drugs and manufacturers of drugs and drug formulations, and finance businesses.The highest admission, however, came from the group of customs house agents, customs clearing agents andcargo-cum-clearing agents, a whopping Rs 46.82 crore (the seizure being of assets worth Rs 3.05 crore). The investigations in this set of searches revealed that the persons involved were inflating expenditure and receiving kickbacks in cash. Some of the shipping agents were also found to have connived with customers to forge documents to claim higher duty drawback against exports.The I-T officers found evidence of huge amounts of suppression of production by manufacturers of textiles and texturised yarn. These practices went together with underinvoicing of sales, suppression of income from bill discounting and the use of bogus firms in business. The admission of concealment in this set of searches came to Rs 11.03 crore.Another big haul for the Investigation sleuths was an admission of concealment by manufacturers of polyester filament and plastic ropes - Rs 13.30 crore. These groups had introduced bogus bills of `expensive' plant and machinery in the books of accounts.The raids included a leadingad agency in the city and a prominent company involved in the setting up of a private port in neighbouring Gujarat. The Directorate of Investigation, Mumbai, also participated in other big searches from other directorates, like the simultaneous raids on virtually the entire fashion designing industry this year.
