Income Tax (IT) officials on Thursday raided the residence and offices of P Sanjeeva Prasad alias 'Goldstone' Prasad, who is one of the chief accused in the Miyapur land scam in Hyderabad.
The IT sleuths raided the 60-year-old's properties in Hyderabad and New Delhi, to reportedly investigate the company's financial deals.
Quoting sources, reports added that twelve teams conducted searches at various places in Hyderabad and Secunderabad, while three teams were in New Delhi.
“Goldstone Prasad and his brother P Parthasaradhi are allegedly involved in money laundering using shell companies and they are using benami entities for land transactions. We have taken up the search as a part of ‘Operation Clean Money’. We have seized records from the company,” an I-T officer told Deccan Chronicle.
"We are also verifying the role of the employees and questioning them. So far, they have not revealed any information about the shell companies; they say they are unaware about the companies,” a source in the I-T department told DC.
Meanwhile, the Times of India reported that at least 21 persons named accused in the scam, are yet to be chargesheeted, on reasons that they are 'absconding'.
In the last week of May, the Hyderabad police unearthed a massive land scam, following the arrest of Kukatpally sub-registrar Srinivasa Rao, which revealed the alleged illegal transfer of several hundred acres of government land to individuals.
Sub-registrar R Srinivasa Rao, along with PS Parthasarathi and PVS Sharma, directors of two firms, were the chief accused in the scam.
The police said that Srinivasa Rao had illegally aided the transfer of land, from the state government, to Sharma and Parthasarathi, which resulted in a loss of over Rs 500 crore to the state's exchequer.
Opposition leaders had also alleged that 50 acres of lands were purchased by TRS MP Keshav Rao's daughter and daughter-in-law at Ibrahimpatnam, allegedly from 'Goldstone' Prasad, who is one of the other main suspects in the case.
PS Prasad, or 'Goldstone' Prasad, is a Hyderabad businessman, and the elder brother of Parthasarathi, one of the accused who was arrested in the case.
Claiming that he was involved in major investment scams in the US in the 1980s, an official had earlier said, "The investigation is leading to an extremely intricate case of a highly organised land scam probably orchestrated by Prasad himself. He is not yet in the forefront, but we are trying to get evidence against him. Once we get proof, we can initiate action against him.”