Hyderabad: The Income-Tax (I-T) department on Friday continued its search operations for the consecutive second day at houses of stars and producers in the Sandalwood, the Karnataka film industry. Officials have reportedly seized bags of gold in the houses of star heroes Shivraj, Puneet Rajkumar, Yash and Sudeep as well. Several producers are under I-T lens as over 25 teams comprising 200 officials have been carrying out search operation at 25 places simultaneously.
The list of producers includes Rockline Venkatesh, Kirangaduru Vijay, CR Manohar, who’s also an MLC, Jayanna. The officials identified and sized huge quantity of gold at Yash’s residence at Katriguppa, Banashankari in Bengaluru, the star hero was in Mumbai on Thursday and immediately rushed back to Bengaluru after hearing the search operation. It’s further speculated that the tax sleuths are investigating for further details from Yash’s wife Radhika Pundit at an unidentified place.
The officials also searched a rented premise of Yash in TajWest End hotel on Racecourse Road. Along with this star hotel room, office of Yash at Kosakerehalli was also seized by the department. The officials sized three bags of gold and currency.
Officials called Sudeep, who was shooting in Mysore, to come back to Bengaluru. His residence at JP Nagar was searched. The officials also interrogated Sudeep’s sister also.
On the other hand, the I-T officials continued their search operation at PuneetRajkumar’s residence at Sadashivanagar till late night on Thursday and seized huge quantity of gold and other valuable things.
The officials have identified several documents pertaining to big-ticket deals in properties and real estate at residence of Rockline Venkatesh.
An official said that after thoroughly assessing the remuneration and ad revenues of heroes, the I-T department got into action. The department also identified that some producers and star heroes made films with an objective of converting black money into white.
