CHENNAI: The Income Tax Department has frozen 100 bank accounts of shell companies managed by Jaya TV managing director Vivek Jayaraman, nephew of convicted AIADMK leader VK Sasikala. The move came three days after IT searches were conducted at 188 premises owned by Sasikala, her relatives, and associates in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
The searches revealed £600,000 in cash, 8.5 kg gold and documents relating to investments worth £120 million of unaccounted money. Several valuables were recovered from unused hostel rooms of a women's college owned by Sasikala's brother V Dhivaharan. A senior IT official said, “We froze 100 bank accounts after we found that they belong to 20-odd shell companies. Several millions were deposited in them soon after demonetisation was announced. The accounts were operated by Vivek Jayaraman.”
The IT department continued their raids at several premises for five whole days. The search was carried out in connection with unexplained routing of cash post-demonetisation through shell companies allegedly connected to Sasikala and her nephew TTV Dhinakaran. The IT department will look at the routing of funds within India while other agencies will look into the routing of money outside India. An official said the nature of this search operation “is different” and it is not just searching the premises and seizing unaccounted cash. “We have information about shell companies and the search is in connection with their operations.”
A team of around 1,800 IT officials knocked at the doors of 187 premises-residences, offices, and farmhouses, to carry out one of the largest searches on Sasikala's family and associates.
