Director-General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) busted a racket that was running a nexus of 93 fake firms and fraudulently availed Input Tax Credit to the tune of Rs 491 crore by issuing fake invoices.
The racket was busted by the Enforcement and Compliance Monitoring Unit of GST & Central Excise, Chennai Outer CGST Commissionerate. It has so far detected 252 fake invoice cases, with an intention to pass illegal and unlawful Input Tax credit to the tune of Rs.491 Crore.
According to sources, fourteen persons have been arrested so far from various parts of the country. A senior officer of the DGGI said the main accused was a Haryana-based person engaged in providing cloud storage facilities to various persons across India, for carrying out work from remote locations and storing data.
The prime accused was allegedly running multiple fake firms on the strength of fake documents and had passed on ITC to the quantum of Rs. 491 crore fraudulently. Acting on specific input from the Jaipur Zonal Unit of DGGI arrested the accused person and found that he was running a nexus of 93 fake firms, the DGGI said.
During investigations, various firms were found non-existent at their given addresses and the main accused person was using the cloud storage service and running the firms. He further revealed that orchestrated the fraud along with other accomplices, who were arrested subsequently. According to DGGI, the accused were creating fake firms, issuing invoices without actual supply of goods in respect of 93 fake firms, and availed input tax credit.