The Income Tax (I-T) department raided 22 premises of well-known event management company Wizcraft, which also handled the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, in the city yesterday and found discrepancies in its accounts. Two bank lockers were sealed in the raids.

More than 70 sleuths raided the premises, including the residences of the company's managing directors in the city.

The raids began in the morning at the company's office at Satyadev Plaza, Veera Desai Road, Andheri. Its branch offices at Vile Parle, Khar and Bandra were also raided. The company has offices in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Dubai.

Officials have seized documents and receipts which indicate that the management has accepted cash which is unaccounted for.

"The seized documents will help us build a watertight case against the company," said a senior I-T official. The three directors of the company are abroad and will be back on Saturday.

Oil mill raid

In another unrelated raid, officials searched the premises of Raj Oil Mills, which has its head office at Mumbai Central. 125 officials have been deployed to run checks on the company's branches at Jaipur and Palghar and the owner's farmhouse at Palanpur, said I-T sources.

Officials found documents that pointed to bogus expenditures and declaration of low profits. Company records indicate raw material worth that amount were procured in the past few years, but I-T officials suspect that the bills are inflated.

A senior I-T officer, requesting anonymity, said that both companies concealed income by showing excessively high depreciation in their books of accounts. Thus, they showed lesser profit to evade tax. B P Gaur, director general (investigation), Income Tax department, confirmed that theu00a0 raids had taken place.

"A raid is going on at Wizcraft and we are searching the premises of Raj Oil Mills. The three directors of Wizcraft are not available for questioning as they are in Canada," he said.

Wizcraft Founder Director Sabbas Joseph said in an SMS to PTI, "I can only confirm that searches have been conducted.
u00a0
Nothing of any significance that one can share." Anmod Sharma, non-executiveu00a0 director of the firm said, "We don't have anything to hide. We organised the CWG ceremony splendidly."