Hyderabad: Income Tax sleuths have uncovered a massive gold-laundering racket worth nearly ₹20,000 crore, exposing how bullion firms across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh turned unaccounted cash into glittering trade.
Raids on DP Gold, CapsGold, and Yash Oro India Pvt Ltd revealed a pattern of laundering where illicit cash was converted into gold biscuits, then sliced into 20-gram pieces and sold in thousands of sub-₹2 lakh transactions — a threshold designed to dodge PAN card declarations. “Stitched together, these deals masked massive volumes of untaxed trade, reminiscent of demonetisation-era schemes,” said a senior official.
At the centre is DP Gold, founded in Nellore in 2009 and now operating in Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Mumbai, and Chennai. Owned by Dilip Kumar Jain and associates, the firm reportedly manages bullion worth ₹20,000 crore annually. Investigators believe it created a laundering chain by routing unexplained cash through bullion sales.
Simultaneous raids on CapsGold, one of India’s oldest bullion houses, and Yash Oro, run by brothers Ritesh and Rajesh Naredi, exposed similar practices — from artificial billing trails to suspicious deposits by small operators. In one case, crores worth of gold were sold to a penny-stock pharma firm in Gujarat trading at just 70 paise a share.
Searches also extended to a property linked to Vasavi Real Estate Group, connected to a CapsGold director. Over ₹1 crore in cash was seized during the crackdown.
Officials are now tracking the money trail, examining festive-season sales, promotional schemes, and unusual banking loops. Early evidence suggests cash, not bullion, may have been the real currency in this laundering web.
