[Cresterk]

Royal drive is a very popular pre-owned car dealership here in Kerala, with showrooms in many major districts and known by pretty much every car enthusiast. They had everything from entry level luxury cars to almost new Rolls Royces, Lamborghinis and the like under their roof.

Their advertisements were everywhere and their clientele consisted of celebs and prominent businessmen. They were growing fast and their founder was even in the news this year for breaking into the "1000 crore club".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tqqkm0KZYo

After more than 2 days of raids by the income tax department, 102 crores worth of black money transactions have been found and notices have been issued to many of their customers suspected to be involved, which includes national level celebrities.


https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kera...lebrities.html


https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news...raid-1.9697512

https://www.etvbharat.com/en/!state/...enn24070503882

Personal thoughts:

Their cars always seemed heavily overpriced to me. You would have 3rd owner, 80k kms driven BMWs and the likes being sold for about 80% the price of a new one. Always wondered how and why people paid that kind of money for a used luxury car over just buying a new one.

Guessing most of the transactions were completed with black money. Apparently they also purchased cars from individuals with black money. These kind of dealerships have been spinning hay to gold with the recent covid inspired car shortage and I blame them for the unreasonably high prices of used cars in Kerala.

You can go through their car inventory and prices here if you are curious: https://www.royaldrive.in/pre-owned-luxury-cars

Share your thoughts below.

[Abhi_Automobile]

About time such mis-doings got uncovered. I bet a lot more like these continue to operate.

Used car prices were never high due to ‘shortage’ of supply. High prices are built into the business model.

1. Most people buy these ‘obscenely high priced’ cars with high cash component.
2. Buyers are well aware that they are paying over the top but, hey, they can put the cash to good use! New car dealers take wire transfers so they can’t buy new cars with cash.
3. Fancy used luxury car dealers (like one above) take cash, and have mechanisms built in as part of value-chain to make money white
4. Everybody wins but for genuine buyers, looking for pre-owned cars as market gets bloated.

Cheers!

[Nanolover]

Yes, I also felt this is simply a medium for turning black money to white and the atrocious pricing for their inventory reflects this.

I remember not long ago a fiat 500 listed for 20 lakhs,that is more than what it cost new and there were people to buy it.

Glad that these kind of money laundering outfits are brought to the book and under scrutiny.

Who knows what this money is being laundered for.

[AMG Power]

This is just the veritable tip of the iceberg.

There are other luxury car dealers that operate in Kerala who have similar customers.

In fact the IT dept is sitting on a gold mine in Kerala - and it’s not confined to used luxury cars. But, enough said.

[DicKy]

Always knew they were overpriced, but thought it was because of some modus operandi I heard years ago. they pay more initially but on the condition that they could change the cars every few months or year, with the car's ownership not transferred. So worked fine for celebrities and NRIs.

It was suspicious enough that many celebrities were getting luxury cars even without having done much films, but many attributed it to new found money from OTT platforms and all.

The raid is said to be part of the investigations on the allegations against the producers of 'Manjummel Boys' regarding money laundering.