IT sleuths 'clone details from Modi's computer

The Income Tax (IT) department which visited the offices of IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi last week had 'cloned' voluminous data on bids and financial details of various franchises from his office computers into its 'portable forensic labs' which the tax sleuths carried along.

The department has sent the portable lab - comprising a computer and a motherboard aided with password cracking software - to its forensic lab in Mumbai for taking the information out in a printed format.

IT sources said the portable forensic lab, which is being carried by tax sleuths in an increasing number of tax evasion operations, had cloned almost five hard disks and few other computer memories from Modi's office.

The department has also taken copies of documents linked to bidding and other financial accounts of the IPL franchises, including the Kochi consortium during their operation on April 15.

The IT team was equipped with pre-wiped disks for imaging and cloning hard drives, portable labs for previewing computer hard disks, specially coated bags and tags to pack, label and transport the images and cloned data to its labs.

Sources said the team also took the images of certain documents with the help of the yellow coloured portable lab after pen drives were inserted into computers during the swoop last Thursday.

The investigative wing of the I-T department has started using these software platforms after taxpayers and evaders have increasingly started using high-end softwares like 'logic bomb' which deletes all files as soon as officials try to source information from the hardware.