Car racket led CBI to Stalin’s bungalow

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Chennai: The CBI on Thursday blew the lid off a massive multi-million rupee fraud in the import of luxury cars for use by top businessmen and politicians.
Among the 18 places raided by the premier investigating agency in the morning was the house of DMK treasurer M.K. Stalin, whose movie producer-actor son Udayanidhi is allegedly using one such “improperly” imported SUV, the Hummer.
Stalin dubbed the raid as an act of “political vendetta”, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh termed its timing as “unfortunate”.
Union finance minister P Chidambaram expressed strong reservations saying the raid was “unacceptable” and he had said so to the concerned minister.
However, the CBI in a statement insisted the operation was “strictly in accordance with procedures and there was no intention whatsoever to target any particular individual”.
A total of 18 places were raided and 17 imported cars seized, it said. Preliminary findings indicated that 33 foreign luxury cars were brought into Tamil Nadu by faking papers to evade import duty, causing loss of up to Rs 48 crore.
Among the vehicles under the CBI scanner are 11 allegedly being used by the India Cements group, belonging to BCCI president N. Srinivasan.
“In fact, many top industrialists and politicians were involved in this massive racket run by a Kerala-based operator known as Alex C. Joseph, who is presently hiding in Delhi. We will get him soon,” said a senior officer, adding that the CBI office in Chennai has registered a case regarding the fraud on Wednesday (March 20).
DRI official was involved in car import graft
A senior CBI official said that an informant some time back had alerted the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence about Kerala-based operator Alex C. Joseph’s racket. They used to import luxury vehicles by faking documents and altering the chassis numbers to show them as qualified for import duty exemption allowed to Indians returning home with their personal belongings permitted for such exemption under “transfer of residence” scheme.
The DRI had assigned the probe to one of its senior officers called Muruganandam. However, Muruganandam fined only one vehicle while letting free the other 32. Now the CBI has registered cases against Muruganandam, Joseph and some more DRI officers and private individuals.
“We believe that Joseph had brought in at least 500 vehicles through this fraudulent method. It reveals some very big names as end-users,” an investigator said. Immigration officials had arrested Joseph when he arrived at Hyderabad airport from Dubai on November 6, 2011 with a fake passport.