I-T finds Tirupur man with US bonds worth $5bn

[Desi Cartman]

COIMBATORE: The investigation wing of the Income Tax (I-T) department in Coimbatore has seized US treasury bonds worth about Rs 27,500 crore from a 45-year- old man claiming to be a financial broker-cum-business consultant in Dharapuram in Tirupur district. I-T sleuths here said the bonds were seized in a raid on December 31 at the residence of T M Ramalingam on Dharapuram-Palani Road near Upputhurai, about 80 kms from Coimbatore, in Tirupur district. The bonds are worth $5 billion. The investigating officers have also seized other financial documents from him including Rs 1.5 crore in fixed deposit receipts from banks in Tirupur district. They have sent the seized bonds to the financial intelligence unit wing in New Delhi for verifying its authenticity. They will also probe his source of income and financial status to confirm whether he had procured the bonds on his own or was acting as a conduit for any other industrial baron in the state, especially in the western region. "We have seized the bonds and are now trying to verify whether those are genuine. The raid was conducted on Wednesday on the basis of a tip-off from financial consultants. This appears to be the most baffling raid as the individual does not seem like a person who could raise such a huge amount. But we are verifying and tracking his financial transaction and business dealings to confirm these details," said a senior I-T official here in Coimbatore. According to I-T officials, Ramalingam, who claims to be a financial broker involved in numerous business deals, was in possession of the bonds issued by the US Federal Reserve, which had his name and address printed on it. Sources claimed the dates mentioned on the bonds were 2014 and 2015. "It looks genuine but we cannot confirm anything at the moment," said a senior I-T official. The officials claimed that they were stunned on seeing bond receipts worth $5 billion in Ramalingam's possession. Ramalingam, who is married with two children, owns an Innova car and has agriculture land holdings. His passport entries indicate that he was a frequent flyer to countries including Brazil, China and Myanmar. Ramalingam told TOI that he had travelled abroad a dozen times but only to countries like Dubai

So this unknown guy has so much just in bonds, cant imagine how much money some of these netas have who are also businessmen :wall:

[Swing_n_Speed]

Whoaa 5 freakin billion? What? Insane. Clearly there is a lot more to this guy. But if this is some sort of scam, then we are looking at the motherload. This is one case I wanna hear more and more about. Seems to be some sort of international network, involved in creating a secondary market for US Treasury Assets. Fascinating!

[Clarke]

His passport entries indicate that he was a frequent flyer to countries including Brazil, China and Myanmar. Ramalingam told TOI that he had travelled abroad a dozen times but only to countries like Dubai

What else but smuggling/trafficking ? Narcotics/slaves/gold/weapons, there's a lot of illicit trade out there that requires money to be moved around as well

[Malcolm Merlyn]

5 billion in Treasury Bonds?:yikes: If i am not wrong these are AAA bonds redeemable almost anywhere in the world and most FIs will jump to take them.

[The Dark Horse]

:D

[Anonymous]

Sound fake to me. I thought they stopped issuing these bonds sometime back IIRC. Even in the UK there are scams involving fake ones. But you never know, it could also be some complex hawala scam

[Clarke]

Sound fake to me. I thought they stopped issuing these bonds sometime back IIRC. Even in the UK there are scams involving fake ones. But you never know' date=' it could also be some[b'] complex hawala scam

His passport entries on emerging economies with their levels of corruption along with Myanmar raised quite some flags for me.

[velu]

:D

:two_thumbs_up:

[jairamesh]

Mafia does a rope trick? http://www.niticentral.com/2013/01/mafia-does-a-rope-trick.html

Has the December 31, 2012 raid on the premises of Tamil Nadu trader TM Ramalingam landed in cold storage following an ÁÖnderstanding between the Government and the alleged true owner of this mindboggling wealth of International Bills of Exchange worth $5 billion? Readers may recall that the small town agricultural commodities trader briefly grabbed the headlines for holding $5 billion worth international bills of exchange, before quietly fading away. On January 10, 2013, a senior Income Tax Department official informed the media that the $5 billion worth international bills of exchange appeared to be bogus, and that this had been orally confirmed by the Barclays Bank which supposedly issued the instruments on February 25, 2011; these were due to mature in February 2015. Ramalingam was to appear before the Income Tax Department on Friday, January 11, but the meeting was abruptly cancelled and no reasons given for the same. The story of the jaw-dropping wealth of the Tirupur district trader has taken so many twists and turns in the recent fortnight that they raise legitimate doubts about the conduct of the case. Soon after the raid, it was said Ramalingam was a nondescript agricultural commodity trader with a modest annual income of just Rs 3 lakh per annum, which kept him out of the tax net. His office-cum-residence is an 86-cent plot on the Dharapuram-Palani road, of which 27 cents is rented to a petrol bunk. The combined income from trade and rentals is Rs 3 lakh. He ostensibly came to the notice of tax authorities when he suddenly purchased a sports utility vehicle for Rs 17 lakh without a loan. It was further alleged that Ramalingam had submitted a proposal to the Centre for a petroleum product refinery worth thousands of crores of rupees at Thondi, Ramanathapuram district, for which he set up a company, Baranidhar Refinery Private Limited. Informed sources say the story of the refinery is a red herring. During the raids, the authorities found US Treasury Bonds worth $5 billion (Rs 28,000 crore), which later changed to $5 billion worth International Bills of Exchange (five in number). Ramalingam claimed he purchased the bills with gold bonds from a person based in Brazil, and was raising funds for his petroleum refinery. Possessing such huge bills of exchange without disclosure to income tax authorities is illegal. After initially asking the Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India to investigate the bonds, it was announced on January 11 that the documents were being flown to the United States for physical verification. The cognoscenti sniggered it was the beginning of a cover-up. Sure enough, barely 24 hours later it takes a minimum 17 hours to fly to America, and the officials carrying the documents would first check into a hotel and recover from jetlag before arriving at the bank, which would take time to study the documents and give a written report about its findings RamalingamÃÔ bills of exchange were pronounced a hoax! The Government now says it will investigate his frequent visits to Myanmar. Informed sources say this development ties in with foreign media reports that ItalyÃÔ anti-mafia prosecutors seized $6 trillion worth of ÁÇake US bonds in February 2012. The bonds were found hidden in makeshift compartments of three safety deposit boxes in Zurich; eight people were arrested in this connection. The financial fraud uncovered included two cheques issued through a bank in London for Ž£205,000 ($325,000), not backed by available funds. The probe also yielded fake bonds for $2 billion in Rome. The individuals involved were planning to buy plutonium from Nigerian sources, according to phone conversations monitored by the police, a Bloomberg report said. All this suggests a massive international money-laundering scheme with as yet unknown objectives. The raid at RamalingamÃÔ premises also yielded fixed deposits worth Rs 1.83 crore in the names of Ramalingam and his son with the State Bank of India and Karur Vysya Bank. An income tax official said Ramalingam had received Rs 2.5 crore from a Singapore company by promising it a loan from a financial institution. He used the funds to buy a new car, repair his house and deposited the balance. The Ramalingam case seems destined to go the way of the investigations into Hasan Ali Khan, the Pune stud farm owner who shot to fame in 2007 with an account with UBS, Zurich, with $8 billion in deposits. The account has since reputedly been emptied; what else? Un-embarrassed, the Union Finance Ministry quietly informed ParliamentÃÔ Standing Committee on Finance last month that it was simply ÁÏot possible to recover tax arrears of about Rs 91,000 crore from Hasan Ali Khan. Despite growing public pressure on the issue of corruption, the UPA Government continues to sit on a list of 26 people with accounts in a Liechtenstein bank, handed over by German authorities. The UPA stand is that the names cannot be revealed as they were received on condition of ÁÄonfidentiality? Experts estimate that around $500 billion of Indian money is stashed away in illegal havens abroad. Nor is the unaccounted money circulating within the country less impressive. Prior to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election in February-March 2012, income tax authorities raided Centrestage Mall, Sector 18, Noida, and reportedly seized Rs 100 crore from a basement vault allegedly belonging to liquor baron late Ponty Chadha (Gurdeep Singh Chadha). Five cash counting machines were also recovered with the cash. A major national daily put the recovery at over Rs 125 crore in cash, while a leading regional daily reported Rs 200 crore seized, plus an additional Rs 38 crore seized from his son-in-law. But two weeks later, the stash diminished to Rs 11 crore in cash, jewellery and fixed deposits! How can Rs 100 crore (if not more) become Rs 11 crore, when estimates of cash seized are made on the basis of volume of the bundles? A 90 per cent margin of error merits an explanation.