AGRA: Income Tax sleuths on Thursday conducted raids at firms and residences of bullion traders in Agra, Mathura, Delhi and Mumbai unearthing financial discrepancies worth Rs 123 crore.The raids were supervised by Amrinder Kumar, principal director (investigation) at Agra along with Tarun Kushwaha, joint director (investigation).The raids were carried out at 18 places in Agra, five in Mathura and one at MumbaiAccording to the sources,Yogendra Mishra, deputy director (investigation) was leading the teams at 18 places in Agra, five in Mathura and one at Mumbai at the showroom of an Andheri-based jeweller.The department began the search at 31 premises simultaneously with 24 warrants. According to the I-T department sources, out of the 31, seven premises were only surveyed, including five at Agra, one each in Mumbai and Delhi.Sources said the bullion firms were linked to R S Bullion and Jewellers in Mathura, owned by Neeraj Agrawal and Neha Agrawal, while firms of bullion traders Sushil Chauhan and Ajay Garg in Agra too were raided by the department.Sources claimed, “The team conducting the raid found major discrepancies of Rs 123 crore while auditing the RS Bullion and Jewellers.The owner of the firm claimed to that majority of the cash deposit was from the sale of gold during demonetisation. Further, they also found a huge number of transactions, which were mostly below Rs 50,000, in order to get the black money regularised through the fake gold sale.”“The bullion traders also told I-T officials that they had stock of gold purchased from a firm ‘Vanity Jewellers’ in Mumbai, but during the investigation, it was found that Mumbai jeweller had closed down in year the 2012 and was not in existence during demonetisation,” said the source.

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