ITANAGAR, 4 Feb: The central GST’s Itanagar commissionerate has unearthed a racket involved in issuance of fake invoices valued at Rs 658.55 crores without any supply of goods/services and arrested two masterminds of the racket, Ashutosh Kumar Jha and Bipin Kumar Jha.
A release from the commissionerate on Tuesday informed that their investigations revealed that M/s Siddhi Vinayak Trade Merchants, a firm registered in Arunachal Pradesh, had engaged in the fraudulent passage of input tax credit (ITC) of Rs 99.30 crores to 58 firms across the country. The fraudulent activities included the creation of a firm using forged documents to create a fake firm, generation of invoices without supply of goods, manipulation of GST returns to avail ITC fraudulently, resulting in loss of about Rs 100 crores for
the government exchequer.
“As a part of the investigation, a search operation was conducted in Kolkata. During the search, significant evidences were seized, including electronic devices (seven mobile phones and one iPad), which have been sent for forensic analysis, and other miscellaneous documents like 53 PAN/Aadhaar cards of different individuals, 17 rent agreements, etc, connected with the fraud. During the search, it was discovered that multiple KYC documents of fictitious individuals were in the possession of the accused, further indicating the scale of the fraudulent activities. The search also revealed that the accused were actively managing and filing fraudulent GST returns from this location. The accused were found to have orchestrated a complex network of fraudulent transactions across the country, utilising forged documents and fake identities, to facilitate the passage of ITC,” stated the release.
The central GST department had lodged an FIR with the Itanagar police regarding the forgery of KYC documents to create the firm. Based on the FIR, the two individuals – Ashutosh Kumar Jha and Bipin Kumar Jha – were apprehended by the Itanagar police from Darbhanga, Bihar.
On 3 February, the offenders were arrested by the Itanagar GST commiserate under Section 69 of the CGST Act, 2017.
Further investigations are currently underway.
