Tax sleuths grill TN bond businessman
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Chennai: Tirupur businessman T. M. Ramalingam on Friday told the income-tax investigators that he had procured his International Bills of Exchange worth $5 billion through a Brazil exchange in return for gold bonds that he was holding for long. Taking a brief break from the daylong grilling of the clever rustic ‘billionaire’, additional director of investigation S. Murali Mohan told mediapersons that the quarry was giving multiple versions on how he came to possess those bills.
“Ramalingam told us that he got his bills through an agent from the Brazil Exchange in exchange for his gold bonds. But then, he has been changing his versions, so we intensive question is continuing. We are verifying the genuineness of the bills with the US Government through diplomatic channels. We expect to get the results in a week”, Mr Mohan said, adding that action could be initiated against Ramalingam for not filing I-T returns for the last four years. To a question whether Ramalingam could be a benami or agent of some influential politician, he said that appeared unlikely.
Amid all kinds of speculation, mostly weird, a source at the I-T headquarters told cthat multiple Central investigating agencies, including the RAW and IB, had sought details of the seizures at Ramalingam’s premises in Tirupur and his depositions. “There is too much of kite-flying happening in the media. It is best to leave the investigating agencies work quietly on this case”, an officer said.
Another source said the Tirupur man was holding some Chinese gold bonds dating back to almost 90 years. “It appears they were fake, like most treasury and gold bonds in such hands would be. Investigation is on to find out if he had used his bills and bonds as collateral security to raise loans from some gullible financiers for his dream oil refinery project”, he said. n P3
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