ACB raids: Cash, documents worth crores seized
Bengaluru, October 05: Following complaints from people against two government officials on amassing illegal assets disproportionate to their known sources of income, the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths conducted raids on the house and offices of those two government officers in eight places simultaneously and recovered cash and documents of properties worth crores, on Friday.
On Friday morning, the ACB sleuths conducted raids on the houses and offices of Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) chief development officer T.R. Swamy and Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) engineer N.S. Gowdaiah.
The ACB officials conducted raids on the Greens apartment at Malleshwara, houses of two relatives and KIADB office of T.R. Swamy. House of N.G. Gowdaiah, relatives houses, another house in Gubbi in Tumkur district and BDA office and recovered cash and records worth crores from them.
ACB officials shocked
More than 20 ACB officials raided on the houses and office of T.R. Swamy and found more than Rs 4.5 crore cash with the denomination of 2,000, 500 and 200. Apart from this, important records worth crores, three luxury cars including Rs 30 lakh worth car. The officials also found heaps of records and files at a parked Omni car in at Mantri Mall Green Apartment basement and the ACB officials suspected that he might have hid the records of illegal activities.
T.R. Swamy lives in 1405 number apartment, while his sister lives in 1504 number apartment. As the ACB officials found cash worth crores, they brought three currency counting machines to count the currency notes found in those apartments.
IGP visits
ACB IGP Chandrashekar visited the house of T.R. Swamy where ACB officials conducted raids and found cash and records worth crores. He said that the ACB is verifying on the allegation that Swamy had thrown a bag from his house during ACB raid.
Booty at Gowdaiah’s house
In the name of family members of Gowdaiah, he has two houses, 8 sites, 14 apartments, 3 kg gold, 10 kg silver, three cars, three bikes, Rs 75 lakh cash and Rs 30 lakh deposits in various banks. Apart from this, 4.5 kg gold ornaments found in the house of his father-in-law, said ACB official sources.
Heaps of currency notes?
In the name of T.R. Swamy’s family members and relatives, he has 8 houses, 10 sites, 10 acre of agriculture land, 1.6 kg gold, three cars, and Rs 4.52 crore cash was found during the raid.
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Canada is already examining tariffs on certain US items following Trump's tariff threat
Toronto (AP/PTI): Canada is already examining possible retaliatory tariffs on certain items from the United States should President-elect Donald Trump follow through on his threat to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products, a senior official has said.
Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico if the countries don't stop what he called the flow of drugs and migrants across southern and northern borders. He said he would impose a 25 per cent tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico as one of his first executive orders.
But Trump posted Wednesday evening on Truth Social that he had a "wonderful conversation" with new Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and she "agreed to stop Migration through Mexico".
"Mexico will stop people from going to our Southern Border, effective immediately. THIS WILL GO A LONG WAY TOWARD STOPPING THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF THE USA. Thank you!!!" Trump posted.
It was unclear what impact the conversation will have on Trump's plan to impose tariffs.
In Canada, a government official said on Wednesday that Canada is preparing for every eventuality and has started thinking about what items to target with tariffs in retaliation. The official stressed no decision has been made. The person spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak publicly.
When Trump imposed higher tariffs during his first term in office, other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs of their own. Canada, for instance, announced billions of new duties in 2018 against the US in a tit-for-tat response to new taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum.
Many of the US products were chosen for their political rather than economic impact. For example, Canada imports USD 3 million worth of yogurt from the US annually and most comes from one plant in Wisconsin, home state of then-House Speaker Paul Ryan. That product was hit with a 10 per cent duty.
Another product on the list was whiskey, which comes from Tennessee and Kentucky, the latter of which is the home state of then-Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell.
Trump made the threat Monday while railing against an influx of illegal migrants, even though the numbers at Canadian border pale in comparison to the southern border.
The US Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone — and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian one between October 2023 and September 2024.
Canadian officials say lumping Canada in with Mexico is unfair but say they are ready to make new investments in border security and work with the Trump administration to lower the numbers from Canada. The Canadians are also worried about a influx north of migrants if Trump follows through with his plan for mass deportations.
Trump also railed about fentanyl from Mexico and Canada, even though seizures from the Canadian border pale in comparison to the Mexican border. US customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.
Canadian officials argue their country is not the problem and that tariffs will have severe implications for both countries.
Canada is the top export destination for 36 US states. Nearly USD 3.6 billion Canadian (USD 2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. About 60 per cent of US crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85 per cent of US electricity imports are from Canada. Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the US and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a emergency virtual meeting on Wednesday with the leaders of Canada's provinces. He stressed they need to present a united front.
"I don't want to minimize for a moment the gravity of the challenge we now face," Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said. "Now is really a moment for us not to squabble amongst ourselves."
The provincial premiers want Trudeau to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with the United States that excludes Mexico.
Sheinbaum, Mexico's president, said earlier Wednesday that her administration is already working up a list of possible retaliatory tariffs "if the situation comes to that."
She later said she talked to Trump and had "an excellent conversation".
