Ranchi: The income tax department on Wednesday raided the offices of realty firm owned by a Ranchi business family, its three sister concerns and homes of owners and directors at 13 locations in five cities - Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bokaro, Calcutta and Mumbai - on concrete suspicion of tax evasion.

Engaged in real estate and building construction, Triveni Infratech Private Limited is headquartered in Mumbai and owned by Ranchi businessman Ramdeo Pandey and his sons Mithilesh and Akhilesh.

Triveni Infratech allegedly floated shell companies to launder and accommodate cash and has also submitted false details of its total turnover.

A senior IT officer investigating the case told this correspondent that he was not in a position to speak on the quantum of tax evasions or their findings on Wednesday as their raids were on and would continue on Thursday as well.

"We need to examine documents on transaction details and shell companies created with the aim of diverting and laundering cash," he said.

On Wednesday's activities, he said, "Broadly, our teams seized documents, hard disks and investment and banking papers, and froze over a dozen bank accounts. Also, Rs 25 lakh in cash was recovered from Jharkhand."

However, he did not specify whether the cash was recovered from Ranchi, Jamshedpur or Bokaro.

In Ranchi, the teams raided the corporate office of Triveni Infratech at Divine House Building on Club Road and residences of its owners at Ashoknagar. In Jamshedpur, sites were carried out at five places, including three sister concerns Juhi Industries, Divine Alloys and Divine Vidyut, and two offices of Triveni Infratech. In Bokaro, the home of Shivnandan Prasad Singh, MD of Juhi Industries was raided.