New Delhi, Oct 18 (IANS): The Income Tax Department has unearthed a black money trail of Rs 900 crore following the search and seizure operations carried out on two groups primarily engaged in running educational institutions and a distillery in the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry region, an official said on Wednesday.

The Income Tax officials have seized unaccounted cash amounting to Rs 32 crore and gold bullion worth Rs 28 crore in the raids carried out on October 5.

These groups have been also carrying out other businesses such as pharmaceuticals, hospitals and hotels, etc. About 100 premises were covered during the search action in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

The preliminary analysis, so far, has resulted in collecting evidence for unaccounted fee receipts of more than Rs 400 crore by the educational institutions and incorrect claim of disbursement of scholarship to the tune of Rs 25 crore.

In one of the groups, seized evidence indicates that the trust was utilising the services of agents for garnering students, for which unaccounted commission payment of about Rs 25 crore has been made, the Income Tax Department said in a statement.

Large scale evidence about receipt of fee which are unrecorded in the books of account and claim of non-genuine disbursement of scholarships has been seized.

In the distillery business run by one of the groups, it has been found that bogus expenditure has been claimed for about Rs 500 crore towards purchase of inputs such as, bottles, flavours, Extra Neutral Alcohol and freight charges, etc.

Such purchases are not corroborated with purchase invoices or entries in stock registers.

Several evidences have been recovered showing that cheques have been issued to various non-existent entities and the same have been received back in the form of cash for making unaccounted investments and for other expenditure which are not allowable as business expenses, according to the official statement.

The seized documents suggest that amount exceeding Rs 300 crore has been diverted from trusts either for personal expenses of the trustees or for deployment in diverse businesses.

It includes payments made by one of the groups for acquiring an industrial entity in Andhra Pradesh, the statement added.