By : raj kumar makkad on 13 December 2009
Mumbai: The income tax (IT ) department in a raid on a
chartered accountant (CA) last week unearthed a money
laundering racket running into over Rs 1,000 crore.
The CA, Mukesh Choksi, through his several companies
generated fake bills showing share transactions in the
name of his customers who wanted to convert their black
money into white. The department also recovered a
pay order of 1 million and came across another onetime
transfer of Rs 10 crore in a private bank account.
A senior I-T official said, Choksis modus operandi was
innovative. He referred to the previous days share transactions
from newspapers and shortlisted scrips that witnessed huge trading
on the bourses. He then created fake broker notes of
intra-day trading on select shares, since these are
not reflected in the demat accounts.
Director of Investigation (I-T ) E T Lukose told TOI,
We have to do a lot of work in this case.
I am not in a position to disclose further details.
Choksi operated from a tiny air-conditioned garage
in Santa Cruz (E). He managed the entire operations
with just five computers, the official added.
He floated around 26 companies through which he
falsely claimed to have carried out share
transactions with the customers.
These companies existed only on paper .
He operated across the country through his
agents, who were mostly CAs or I-T practioners,
the official said. The department has recovered
documents containing the names of the people who
availed of his services. We are yet to reach to
the beneficiaries , Lukose said.
The cash that came from the beneficiaries was deposited
in the bank accounts of one of Choksis companies.
A cheque towards the said amount isdeposited
into the account of his another company .
The second company issues a cheque in the name
of the beneficiary. The beneficiary shows the money
as gains made from the share transactions where Choksis
companies acted as share brokers.
Choksi deducted a commission
for the services rendered , a source said. In one transaction,
officials came across a cash deposit of Rs 10 crore
in the private bank account of his company in Karnatakas
Mandya branch. The money got transferred to another account
in Mumbai for issue of pay order in favour of a charitable
organsiation in Chennai. However, the transaction got cancelled
and the money was returned to the Mandya account and was withdrawn
on the same day. We are investigating this too, the senior official
said. Sources said that Choksi had come under the scanner
twice in 2001-02 and again four years later in
connection with similar transactions. SEBI had imposed
a ban on him from operating in the market.
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