Mumbai | September 11, 2026
Mumbai Police have arrested two income-tax officials and two other people in connection with an alleged fake raid at a company in Chakala and an attempted extortion of Rs 1 crore, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 10, police said.
The two officials arrested on Thursday were identified as income-tax inspector Sureshkumar Mishra, 57, posted at the Piramal Chamber office in Lalbaug, and tax assistant Sunil Gore, 59, posted at Kautilya Bhavan in the Bandra Kurla Complex. Police said the two had allegedly been involved in an earlier case involving a company in Manpada, where an alleged demand of Rs 65 lakh was made.
The latest incident allegedly took place on July 17 at Two M Ophthotronics Pvt Ltd in Sahar Cargo Estate. According to police, a group posing as an income-tax raiding team entered the company and sought to examine its records. The alleged raid was halted after company owner Rajkumar Kandasami asked the group to produce authorisation documents.
The group allegedly failed to provide the documents and left after spending about three hours at the premises, police said. Kandasami subsequently checked with his chartered accountant and found that the income-tax department had not ordered a raid. Andheri Police registered a first information report on September 4 following his complaint.
Police sub-inspector Rohan Surve said two men in plain clothes had approached Kandasami and his wife near their home, displayed an identity card and forced them into a cab booked through an aggregator. They allegedly took the company owner to his office, questioned employees, examined documents and obtained his signature on a purported search warrant.
The men allegedly questioned Kandasami about cash transactions, threatened him with a substantial penalty and offered to settle the purported tax case for Rs 1 crore, police said. The alleged extortion attempt was unsuccessful after the company owner sought proof of the raid’s authorisation.
Senior inspector Umesh Machindar said investigators believed the alleged operation had been organised with information supplied by Santosh Khopatkar, 37, a former driver employed by the company. Khopatkar had allegedly been dismissed three months earlier and wanted to retaliate against his former employer, police said. Investigators allege that he approached the income-tax officials for help in carrying out the raid.
Earlier arrests in the case included Vinay More, 37, Prem Sabnani, 50, Pragnya M, Reshma Warang, 41, and Shabina Shaikh, 48. Deputy Commissioner of Police (West Zone-3) Datta Nalawade said police had also taken custody of Jitendra More of Thane and Ashok Shinde of Vile Parle West on Thursday. The two were already in judicial custody in connection with the Manpada case.
The arrests relate to allegations made by the police and remain subject to the investigation and judicial process. Police have not indicated that the income-tax department authorised the Chakala operation; their inquiry, according to the report, found no such order had been issued.
