The Income Tax department today has conducted sudden raids at the properties of top Tamil film producers such as Kalaipuli S Thanu, S.R. Prabhu, K.E. Ganavelraja and Sathyajyothi Thiagarajan among others. Reports say that at forty premises belonging to or associated with popular film financiar Madurai Anbuchezhian in Chennai and Madurai are under the scanner as well.

All of the above mentioned names are the leading producers in Kollywood who are backing big budgets flicks such as 'Pathu Thala', 'Chiyaan 61', 'Captain Miller', 'Vaadivaasal', 'Oke Oka Jeevitham', 'Bhola' and 'Suriya 43'. It is also well known that Anbuchezhian is a one man industry as far as film financing is concerned and rarely a production is done without procuring loans from him. Hence it is said that the raids on the others has been made after documents were found at Anbu's premises.

The raids at the same time on the who is who of Tamil cinema has left the film industry in deep shock . Insiders say that already the business is bad with only a small percentage of films succeeding and producers facing heavy losses at the box office.