On Tuesday, July 5, The Enforcement Directorate conducted raids at as many as 44 locations across the country linked to the Chinese mobile company Vivo. The searches are being conducted in a money-laundering investigation against the Chinese smartphone manufacturing company.
Among the states where searches are in progress are Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana.
The searches are being carried out under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
In May, the Indian units of ZTE Corp., a Chinese partially state-owned technology company and Vivo Mobile Communications Co. had come under the scanner for alleged financial irregularities.
Chinese mobile company Xiaomi’s India unit slapped with three show cause notices worth Rs 653 crores
Vivo is not the only Chinese mobile company under the scanner for financial irregularities. In January this year, the Finance Ministry issued three show-cause notices to Chinese phone maker Xiaomi’s India unit ‘Xiaomi Technology India’ for evading customs duty by way of undervaluation. With the notices, the tax authorities are demanding Rs 653 crore in tax from the company. This development came after a detailed investigation was initiated by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) against Xiaomi India and its contract manufacturers.
This development came a month after the Income Tax Department had conducted searches on leading Chinese mobile companies across the country on December 21. The searches were conducted in offices of Oppo, Xiaomi, and One Plus in Delhi and 11 states including, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Assam, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, and Rajasthan.
The search revealed that two major companies had made remittances in the name of royalty, to and on behalf of its group companies located abroad, which aggregates to more than Rs 5500 crore.