Following an Income Tax raid that continued for several days at the residence and office of former BSP MLA from Agra, Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutto meat exporter firm, HMA group disclosed Rs 100 crore undeclared income on Wednesday.
The raid continued for 88 hours at 35 locations spread in 12 cities of 5 states in India, involving over 180 income tax officers, paramilitary forces, and other security personnel.
This is the second biggest recovery in Agra made by the Income tax department in recent years. Four years earlier, a raid on Agra-based BNR Group had yielded Rs 101 crore of undeclared income.
It is learnt that the HMA group is the third largest meat exporter company in India with over Rs 2000 crore turnover and an export network spread through 40 countries.
The I-T department conducted a simultaneous raid on 12 cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Raipur, Unnao, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Meerut, and Chandigarh. 18 locations were raided in Agra alone.
The department has confiscated all documents, laptops, mobile phones, for further investigation, and if the undeclared income proves to be more than what has been surrendered, the penalty will be raised accordingly.
The department is also investigating several of the HMA Group’s suppliers, as most of the transactions with the suppliers have been shown to be done in cash, while several dozen vendors have been proven to be fake.
Fourteen such vendors have been traced to local residents of Agra, who were either working with the company as employees or were completely unattached, with no information that their name was being used by the company in forgery.
