The income-tax (I-T) department on Tuesday unearthed a massive nexus of Chinese companies and individuals that had allegedly created several shell firms to carry out money laundering and hawala transactions of over Rs 1,000 crore.

In their crackdown on these Chinese companies, the tax authorities launched an extensive search operation at 21 premises across Delhi, Ghaziabad and Gurugram. The effort was directed at these entities, their close confederates and also the bank employees who allegedly helped them in laundering money.

“About 40 bank accounts were created in the name of dummy entities run by these Chinese firms that transacted thousands of crores of rupees,” the income-tax department stated.

The investigation has so far revealed that a subsidiary of a Chinese company and its related company took over Rs 100 crore in bogus advances from shell entities for opening business of retail showrooms in India.

During the searches, tax officials found incriminating documents with respect to hawala, with an active involvement of bank employees and chartered accountants. Besides, evidence of foreign hawala involving Hong Kong and US dollars was also been unearthed, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement.

Explaining the modus operandi, an official privy to the probe said that a Chinese individual was found to be holding a fake Indian passport issued in Manipur. He was using at least 10 bank accounts under fictitious names across the country. “More names would be revealed in coming weeks,” the official hinted.