New Delhi: In a nationwide drive against bogus firms using fake GST bills to fraudulently claim input tax credit (ITC), tax authorities on Wednesday arrested eight offenders from different parts of the country, including a mastermind from Gujarat’s Vadodara. Mitesh M Shah, who was nabbed from Vadodara Wednesday, created 115 bogus firms to fraudulently avail and pass on input tax credit worth over Rs 50 crore, ETV Bharat has learnt.
In the nationwide drive, the authorities have so far arrested 59 offenders, including three chartered accountants and a lady mastermind from Chennai, who has created several firms on the name of her relatives to commit GST fraud.
Officials of Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), have so far booked 793 cases and identified over 2,800 entities involved in the use of fake GST bills and invoices to evade tax.
Four individuals, Mahendrabhai Desai of Sanjay Corporation, Rakesh Kumar Chavda of Setal Enterprise, Mohd lshaq lsmail Ansari of Lohiya Enterprise and Jignesh Kumar R. Patel have been arrested by DGGI’s Ahmedabad zone unit on Wednesday.
In addition to these four offenders, officials arrested three more offenders from different parts of the country, while Parth Jain from Bengaluru and Ranjan Kumar Sinha from Kolkata were arrested by respective zonal units of DGGI, Chennai’s DGGI zone arrested Sivanesan S Kumaran of OMT Traders.
Raids conducted across 32 cities
On Tuesday, tax officials conducted raids across 32 cities in one of the biggest exercises against the use of fake GST bills so far. Raids were conducted in Bhubaneswar, Meerut, Bhopal, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Nagpur, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore, Surat, Vadodara, Una (H.P.), Rajkot, Kochi, Hosur, Gurugram, Pune, Ludhiana, Ranchi, Belagavi, Patna, Guwahati, Raipur and Jammu.
“We have so far recovered Rs. 177.50 crore in cash during these raids and efforts are being made to apprehend some of the fraudsters who are absconding,” an official told ETV Bharat.
Officials said the owner of a bogus trading firm AS International, who has a network in Delhi-NCR and Kolkata, is also among the absconders.
Officials said this bogus firm was trading in readymade garments and is learnt to be involved in GST fake bill fraud worth over Rs 18 crore.
“The DGGI Meerut Zonal Unit is on trail to arrest the fraudster,” said a source.
Similarly, officials from DGGI Chandigarh zone raided several places in Jammu and Delhi-NCR and detected GST fake bill fraud by Jammu based Ravi Crop and recovered Rs 60 lakh in cash. The firm was using fake GST invoices issued by 10 bogus firms.
Also, CGST Bhopal Zone has booked a case against a firm called SAFAL Trading, for using fake invoices of iron and steel products issued by various non-existent firms.
CGST Jaipur Zone has detected a case against an Alwar based firm, Salasar E-waste, which is engaged in manufacturing of lead ingots from old batteries and scraps. The firm was availing fraudulent ITC on fake invoices of eight fictitious firms.
In a DGGI, Delhi Zone detected a case against Magna Enterprises of fake invoices. Interestingly enough, this firm was registered for supply of meat and edible oil but had shown supplies of waste and scrap of ferrous metal and goods.
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