Mumbai, Feb 20 (Deccan Chronicle): Billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi, the kingpin behind the largest banking scam in the country's history, was raided by the income tax officials in January last year as part of crackdown on black money after the Centre's decision to ban high denomination notes, sources said, according to a report in NDTV.

The raids were conducted to identify jewellers who had backdated transactions to accept the banned Rs. 2,000 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes after November 8, 2016.

It is not clear what the tax department had discovered then.

But according to sources, nearly Rs. 250 crore was transacted in cash, out of which nearly Rs. 100 crore was done by individuals in cash.

However, the raids did not result in flagging the Rs 11,400 crore bank fraud, which he was allegedly pulling off.

PNB, the second largest state-run bank, had on February 14 detected a USD 1.77 billion fraud at its Brady House branch in Horniman Circle area of south Mumbai and named the firms led by Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi's Gitanjali Group and some other diamond and jewelry merchants as suspects.

ED sources told ANI that the agency has raided 35 new locations covering 11 states and seized diamond and gold worth Rs 549 crore so far.

A total of 5,649 crores, 29 immovable properties have been identified, ED sources told ANI.