New Delhi, Aug 6 (IANS): The Income Tax Department on Saturday claimed to have detected undisclosed income exceeding Rs 200 crore besides Rs 26 crore in cash during a recent raid on Tamil film producer G.N. Anbu Chezhiyan's premises.

The officials, however, did not confirm whether the cash was recovered from Chezhiyan's premises or whether the undisclosed income also belonged to him or not.

"The searches in the cases of film financiers have revealed documents like promissory notes relating to unaccounted cash loans, which were advanced to various film production houses and others. So far, the search operation has resulted in detection of undisclosed income exceeding Rs 200 crore. Undisclosed cash of Rs 26 crore and unaccounted gold jewellery exceeding Rs 3 crore have been seized," said an IT official.

The search operations were conducted at almost 40 locations in Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Vellore.

During the course of the search operations, several incriminating documents and digital evidence relating to unaccounted cash transactions and investments were seized.

Secret and hidden premises also got unearthed during the search.

In the cases of film production houses, evidence reveals tax evasion, as the actual amounts realized from the release of the films are much more than the amounts shown in the regular books of account.

The unaccounted income so generated by them is deployed for undisclosed investments as well as for various undisclosed payments.

Similarly, evidence seized in the cases of film distributors, indicate collection of unaccounted cash from the theatres.

As per the evidence, the distributors have formed syndicates and have systematically suppressed the theatre collections, resulting in the suppression of actual income.

Further investigations in the matter are on.