Chennai: Income Tax (IT) officials conducted raids for the fourth consecutive day at the residences of industrialist J Shekar Reddy in Chennai and Vellore today.

In Vellore, two cars, cash and jewels were seized. Sources say that IT staff counted the new currency notes seized during the raid through the whole of last night. The buzz is that using the serial numbers in the new notes that they have seized, officials are trying to ascertain from which bank Reddy and his associates managed to exchange old notes in such large volumes.

The IT department had seized Rs 24 crore cash in new notes yesterday. Officials said the seizure of new currency, in Rs 2,000 notes, was made by the sleuths from a car in Vellore. With this amount, the total seizure in the case has now gone up to Rs 166 crore.

A senior department official said this seizure of gold and cash was “the most unprecedented amount that the Tax department has seized in recent times”. The department, the officials said, carried out the searches based on intelligence inputs about the activities of Reddy and a few others for the last few days.

Eight premises (six residential and two offices) were covered in the search. Sources from the IT Department revealed that Shekar, who is a PWD contractor is closely associated with members of the ruling party in the State. It is also said that Shekar claimed the entire seized money and the gold as his own. Following the raids, he has been removed from the trustee post on the board of Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam.