'Taxmen' rob cigarette firm staff of Rs 1 cr in banned notes

Posing as Income Tax department officials, three men made away with Rs 1 crore cash belonging to the owner of a Tamil Nadu-based cigarette manufacturing company.

The incident that took place around 4.30 am on November 21 on NICE Road has now come to light. After the businessman Arogya Raj lodged a complaint on November 23, the police have detained a few people for questioning.

Arogya Raj has a warehouse at Madanayakanahalli on Tumakuru Road on the outskirts of Bengaluru. He had told the warehouse supervisor Shivu to transport Rs 1 crore cash in a container. Shivu along with the container driver Xavier and its cleaner Sagayi Raj left the warehouse with the cash on the night of November 21.

Three men stopped the vehicle on a bridge near Nagegowdanapalya at 4.30 am. They introduced themselves as Income Tax officers and claimed that they had information that money was being transported illegally in the vehicle.

They checked the vehicle and found bags containing cash. They questioned Shivu on the source of the money and directed him to produce documents. But Shivu could not provide a convincing explanation.

The trio loaded the cash bags into their Maruti Swift car and directed Sagayi Raj to get into it. Before they sped, they told Shivu and Xavier to come to police station along with documents to the claim the cash.  A few minutes later, they pushed Sagayi Raj out the vehicle and sped. Shivu immediately informed Arogya Raj about the incident.

The police said Shivu was transporting demonetised notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations. Arogya Raj claimed that he had sent the money for disbursing salaries to workers. He said he would produce relevant documents to the police.

Shivu and Xavier gave the registration number of the Swift car to the police, who verified the CCTV camera footage at toll plaza on NICE Road. They found that no car with the said registration number had passed through the plaza.