The First Case of Gadget Misuse for Tax Evasion in India

It's out, It's public, It's no news, INDIA IS ALL ABOUT JUGAAD. Times of India, Page 13, June 13,2006 Reads

New Delhi: If you thought iPod was just a device to store music, get a second opinion from revenue intelligence officials. The department has unearthed a slew of cases where taxevaders had stored records of their illegal transactions in iPods and pen-drives — devices that can be easily concealed or destroyed.
During a raid on an industrialist in Haryana’s Yamunanagar town last year, the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI) found excise evasion of over Rs 55 lakh. However, no incriminating documents were found on computers or files. The sleuths then scanned a pendrive and an iPod to find details of undeclared dealings stored there. The pen-drive was hidden in the industrialist’s bathroom.
This is hardly an isolated case. At another raid in Ludhiana, DGCEI officials seized a pen-drive allegedly belonging to the owners of plywood company, Perfect Agro. After deciphering its contents, officials found evidence of largescale evasion of excise duty.
Concealing secret transactions in pen-drives and iPods is fast catching up as a trend, say income tax and directorate of revenue intelligence officials, who now take special care to seize these devices before laying hands on account books and computers during a raid. The internet too is a favoured hideaway for taxevaders, who post details of illegal accounts on the web before deleting these files from their records.
Though these gizmos are small enough to fit into a shirt pocket, they have immense memory — ranging from 1 to 30 giga bytes. They are also very easy to discard. Officials believe that during many raids, pen-drives have been put into burning furnaces, crushed under car wheels or thrown into dustbins. In one case, a pen-drive was recovered from the driver of an accused.
Three rolling mills were raided in Shahdara area of east Delhi last September, where transactions worth Rs 40 crore was unearthed from data tucked away in iPods and pen-drives. Clearly, as gizmos get smaller the headache for enforcement agencies gets bigger.

There is more, try to grab a copy. You had never thought of this, ahem, you had.. and you thought you could get away with it, well not really, the Tax Man is smartening up.. Be ware.. But hey.. JUGAAD is big..

I don't think anyone in the world, thought about this.

G