Kochi: The Income Tax Department sleuths have allegedly unraveled illegal assets worth over Rs 400 crore during the simultaneous raids held at various business divisions of the Sreevalsam Group of companies owned by former Additional SP of Nagaland M.K.R. Pillai. “A probe is on to check whether the black money found includes investments by bureaucrats and politicians in Nagaland. We suspect the funds were sent to the state through hawala channel. We’ll quiz Pillai later on this,” said a senior IT official. The IT department carried out simultaneous searches at nearly 30 premises owned by the Pandalam-based group from 11 am Thursday to 4 am Friday.
It included the offices at Pandalam, Aranmula, Thiruvananthapuram and Mavelikkara in the state besides other locations outside it. IT officers even found a vehicle of Nagaland police at the residence of Pillai. Sreevalsam Group officials were not available for comment. The group has assets worth around Rs 1000 crore and the IT sluths are probing how a police officer could amass the huge wealth. According to a senior officer of IT (Investigation) unit, the raid was temporarily stopped after the business group agreed to provide all the documents and declare all its assets and revenue it owns.
