The Income Tax (I-T) department carried out a three-day raid across several medical institutions in Bengaluru and seized huge undeclared cash, jewellery and foreign currency.
The I-T officials brought two of the top in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) centres of Bengaluru under its scanner and discovered a multi-layered connection between medical centres and other diagonostic centre and labatories, wherein doctors used to refer patients in order to earn enormous commissions.
According to a Bangalore Mirror report, undisclosed income of Rs 100 crore has been discovered in one of the labs while the amount of referral fee in the other exceeded Rs 200 crore.
Cash exceeding Rs 1.4 crore, gold weighing more than 3.5 kg, and even some foreign currency indicating accounts in foreign banks were seized from the IVF centres.
"Holding foreign bank accounts (undeclared to the I-T department) is an offence under Black Money Act and such accounts holders are liable for punishment,'' a senior official was quoted as saying by the daily.
The nexus of referring patients was discovered after five diagnostic centres were searched.
The unreasonable commissions were covered up in the name of marketing expenses.
According to the Bangalore Mirror report, the payments are made on a fortnightly basis and the referral fees paid in cheque were shown as professional fees on record books.
"Even commission agents were involved this scam. Some of the labs employ commission agents whose job is to distribute money to doctors in envelopes. These agents insert a small chit into the envelopes that contain the details of the patient referred by that doctor, tests done, amounts billed against the tests, and commission amount to be given to the doctor,'' the I-T department said in its official statement.
