Cafe Coffee Day raid: Income tax sleuths unearth Rs 650 crore illegal income; shares slide 9%

Days after Income Tax Department first raided premises of India's largest coffee chain - Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) - owner VG Siddhartha, the income tax sleuths have found Rs 650 crore concealed income from the documents seized while concluding the search and seize operations on Sunday.

According to a report in IANS, the documents seized from the search operations at 25 places of Cafe Coffee Day and its group companies in Karnataka, Mumbai and Chennai have revealed concealed income of over Rs 650 crore.

"There are a number of other issues, including violations of other statutes on which there is no disclosure but relevant evidence has been found. These will be pursued effectively as part of our investigation," the report quoted a tax official, as saying

The raids, which started on September 21, were carried out on offices and residence of CCD founder V G Siddhartha and company's other officials in Bengaluru, Chikkamagaluru, Hassan and Mysuru in Karnataka.

The corporate office of the Amalgamated Bean Coffee (ABC) Trading Company, which runs the CCD's retail outlets across the country were also searched by tax sleuths.

Coffee Day Enterprises shares tumbled over 9% in an early trade on Monday. The shares of Coffee Day Enterprises were trading at Rs 208.95 down by more than 9.86%.

VG Siddhartha is the elder son-in-law of former Karnataka Chief Minister SM Krishna. Siddhartha is credited with creating India's largest coffee empire.

By number of coffee outlets, Siddhartha's retail chain till 2011 was among the top six globally, behind Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, Tim Hortons, Costa Coffee and McCafe.

Siddhartha and his family own a coffee empire that stretches in over 10,000 acres of coffee estates in Chikamagalur, Karnataka. As of March 2015, the CCD group run 1530 outlets across 29 states of India. All the coffee served at Coffee Day outlets comes from the 10,000 acres of plantations that Siddhartha owns in Chikamagalur, Karnataka.  

VG Siddhartha opened Cafe Coffee Day's first outlet on Bangalore's upscale Brigade Road in 1996. The CCD's first launch came at a time when Bangalore was on the cusp of a transformation from a pensioners' paradise to an IT and lifestyle haven.