New Delhi, Oct 9 (IANS): The Centre said on Saturday that the Income Tax Department recently carried out 'search and seizure' operations on a major pharmaceutical group based out of Hyderabad and seized about Rs 143 crore in cash besides detecting unaccounted income to the tune of Rs 550 crore.

According to the Ministry of Finance, the operations were carried out on October 6.

"This pharmaceutical group is engaged in the business of manufacturing of intermediates, and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and formulations. Majority of the products are exported to foreign countries like the US, Europe, Dubai and other African countries," the ministry said in a statement.

"The search operations were carried out at about 50 locations in six states," it added.

The ministry said that during the searches, hideouts were identified, where second set of books of accounts and cash were found.

"Incriminating evidence in the form of digital content, pen drives, documents etc. have been found and seized. Incriminating digital evidences were gathered from the 'SAP @ ERP' software maintained by the assessee group," the statement said.

"During the searches, issues relating to discrepancies in purchases made from bogus and non-existent entities and artificial inflation of certain heads of expenditure were detected," it added.

Besides, evidence of on-money payment for purchase of lands was also found.

"Various other legal issues were also identified such as personal expenses being booked in the company's books and land purchased by related parties below government registration value," it said.

The ministry cited that during the search, several bank lockers were found, out of which 16 have been operated.

"The searches have resulted in the seizure of unexplained cash amounting to Rs 142.87 crore. The unaccounted income unearthed is estimated to be in the range of about Rs 550 crore till now," it said.

"Further investigation and quantification of undisclosed income detected are in progress," the statement added.