WATCH: BJP takes dig at Congress over cash haul with ‘Money Heist’ video

The Bharatiya Janata Party has released a video slamming the Congress after Rs 353 crore was seized by the income tax department during raids at the premises of one of the MPs of the grand old party last week.

The BJP shared the video, calling it Congress’ “Money Heist”.

The income tax department carried out extensive searches, for five days, and seized Rs 353 crores in cash from an Odisha-based distillery firm run by members of Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand Dhiraj Sahu.

In a minute-long video, shared by the BJP on X, Sahu is seen meeting Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leader Rahul Gandhi.

The clip also showed cupboards and lockers, stashed with bundles of currency notes and some bags too filled with seized cash.

Congress presents the ! pic.twitter.com/vp3BTheosh

— BJP (@BJP4India) December 12, 2023

It also showed Gandhi dressed as one of the characters in the Netflix series Money Heist, getting excited seeing the unaccounted money and expressing joy over it.

Money Heist is a crime thriller on Netflix where the Professor (Álvaro Morte) and his gang tackle seemingly impossible heists, starting with The Royal Mint before taking things to the next level at The Bank of Spain.

‘Highest-ever’

According to officials, the cash haul is the "highest-ever" in a single action by any probe agency in the country.

The counting of the seized currency notes took five days and concluded on 10 December 2023.

How it started?

The IT department launched the marathon raids against Boudh Distillery Private Limited, its promoters and others on 6 December 2023, on charges of tax evasion and "off-the-book" transactions.

It took nine teams of about 80 people from the tax department and various banks, who worked for five days in shifts in a 24×7 cycle to finish counting the cash recovered during the raid.

Officials had to use 40 currency counting machines and they collected the whopping Rs 351 crore in 176 bags.

The maximum cache of currency, largely in Rs 500 denomination, was recovered from the premises of the company in Bolangir district, officials said.

The department believes that the entire cache of currency is “unaccounted” money earned from cash sales of country liquor by the business group, distributors and others.

What will IT department do with seized Rs 351 crore?

The seized recovered during the raid were taken in bags for counting to three State Bank of India (SBI) branches — in Balangir, Sambalpur and Titlagarh. The maximum 176 bags filled with cash were taken to SBI’s Balangir branch, where additional manpower had to be deployed for counting the notes.

All the seized cash was then deposited at a SBI main branch in Odisha's Balangir. The branch, however, will continue to function for public dealings, SBI Regional Manager Bhagat Behera said.