Perfumer Piyush Jain arrested  |  Photo Credit: Twitter
Key Highlights
- Unaccounted sandalwood oil, perfumes worth crores have been seized from his factory
- Jain is gave unconvincing explanations about the cash recovery
New Delhi: A day after Rs 200 crore was seized by the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) from his premises, Kanpur-based perfume industrialist Piyush Jain was arrested from Kannauj on Sunday.
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, the apex body of investigation agency DGGI had called this the biggest cash seizure in history.
This development comes after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday claimed that the businessman whose premises were raided by central agencies recently has links with Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, a charge denied the Opposition party.
Addressing a public meeting here, the chief minister said around Rs 100 crore more recovered from the trader today.
“For the past two-three days, continuous raids are being conducted on the premises of a person belonging to the SP. Rs 257 crore in cash and several kilograms of gold and silver was recovered,” the CM said adding that the money belongs to the poor.
There is also evidence of how it was looted, he added.
Some photographs of the raids went viral on various social media platforms showing stacks of cash stuffed in large wardrobes at the residential premises of Jain in Kanpur.
Jain runs the perfume-manufacturing units also in Kannauj district, neighbouring Kanpur.
The tax officials also raided a factory manufacturing ‘Shikhar’ brand of pan masala and other scented tobacco products here in the city.
The money was allegedly linked to the dispatch of goods via fake invoices and without e-way bills by a goods transporter, the official said.
The raids also led to a war of words between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party on Twitter.
The UP unit of the BJP said, “People of SP, the smell of your sins will not be washed away by the perfume of corruption. More than Rs 150 crore of black money has been seized. And it is natural for Akhilesh to feel the pain when action is initiated on the corrupt people.”
The entire UP knows that SP means corruption, the tweet said.
Reacting to this, SP said that the saffron party and the media are defaming SP by forcibly linking Jain and Shikhar Pan Masala to SP and claimed that the industrialist has nothing to do with SP MLC Pumpi Jain.