In Chennai, Income Tax investigation agents have found money stealing racket and have seized Rs. 120 crore in older currencies, new currencies and also gold bars from eight different premises including a star hotel room.
An IT official mentioned, “The premises belong to industrialist Shekhar Reddy, his associate Srinivasa Reddy and their agents including one Prem”.
The total seizure contains Rs. 80 crore in old banned currencies and Rs. 10 crore in newly introduced Rs. 2000 notes. Also, the teams seized 100kg gold bars which hold the value of Rs. 30 crore. Not only this, the sleuths also received a tip-off about exchange of old currencies in place of gold bars. Following the instructions, they reached at Reddy associates. There, they seized new denomination notes worth Rs. 6 crore. The notes were in denomination of Rs. 2000 from the house of Shekhar Reddy in T Nagar.
On the basis of information provided by him, officials charged a room in a renowned star hotel in Teynampet. There, they seized gold bars weighing 70 kg. The room was booked by Reddys on the name of one of their trusted agents.
Chasing the lead pathways generated during the leads, IT officials made enquiries at some jewellery shops in the city. An official mentioned, “We are investigating how the gang managed to get Rs 10 crore in newly introduced Rs 2,000 denomination when there is restriction on money withdrawal from bank accounts and people are standing in queues for hours to withdraw money from banks and ATMs”. And the sources said, that some bank officials are equally merged in the racket.
The person Shekhar Reddy is ingrained with several bigwigs and was equally merged in the matter of sand quarrying in some last years. For the contractors, sand quarrying is a huge money spinner. For every load, they make a nearly margin of Rs. 5,000-6,000. As per the reports, more than 50,000 of loads of river sand is quarried on daily basis.
Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam is a Trust and Shekhar Reddy is one of the chief members of the group. Reddy had also visited at Apollo Hospital to hand over Tirupati ‘prasadam’ to the previous chief minister J Jayalalitha.
