Shell cos to park stash

ACB officials discovered that Sub-Registrar Srinivas Rao had opened multiple shell companies and used his son and others to deposit the money into the bank accounts of those companies

​Hyderabad: Feeling unsafe to park their ill-gotten money with benamis, the corrupt officials are now opening shell companies to legitimise the ill-gotten money.

This has made the job of anti-corruption agencies more difficult as they must depend on other departments such as the Registrar of Companies (ROC) and tax authorities to probe such cases.

A shell company is a non-trading company used as a vehicle for various financial manoeuvres and also to park illegitimate earnings.

It may be recalled here that the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of Telangana had recently unearthed disproportionate assets worth over Rs 150 crore amassed by sub-registrar Rachakonda Srinivasa Rao linked to the massive Miyapur land scam.

During the investigation, ACB officials discovered that Rao had opened multiple shell companies and used his son and others to deposit the money into the bank accounts of the shell companies like Hasini Power Projects, North Star Homes, Manjeera Holding and I-Con Construction Company Private Limited.

From the bank accounts of these shell companies, the tainted official used to divert the funds for the purchase of assets, sources told The Hans India.

In Andhra Pradesh too, ACB officials found similar modus operandi when the anti-corruption sleuths raided several places related to Pamu Panduranga Rao, engineer-in-chief of the Public Health and Municipal Administration Department.

ACB officials discovered that the tainted official had amassed disproportionate assets worth Rs 1,000 crore. The sleuths also found that he had opened four shell companies on his wife, Rajayalakshmi’s name to legitimise the ill-gotten money. ACB officials said the tainted officers even paid income tax in the name of shell companies to legitimise the ill-gotten money.

“This has prompted us to seek help from the Registrar of Companies and tax authorities so that the investigation can be carried out at a faster pace. From now on, we are planning to request the two departments to keep us informed about suspicious transactions of companies.

We are also contemplating to form multi-disciplinary teams with the officials of these two departments to keep track of shell companies,” a senior ACB official added.