Four more arrested in connection with ₹10,000 crore GST fraud
Noida, Dec 8, 2023
Earlier, in June, the Noida police uncovered the alleged fraud with the arrest of eight suspects and recovered a list of over 3,000 bogus companies, registered on the basis of fake PAN card details. These fake companies were then used to generate e-way bills (GST related receipts for transporting consignments)
The Noida police on Thursday arrested four people and said they busted another gang that was allegedly involved in the ₹10,000 crore GST [good and services tax] fraud that involved registering thousands of bogus companies using stolen or fake identities, and then using these firms to raise e-way bills and avail of input tax credit (ITC) from the government. The four suspects were arrested from Trinagar in Delhi on Thursday, police said.
Earlier, in June, the Noida police uncovered the alleged fraud with the arrest of eight suspects and recovered a list of over 3,000 bogus companies, registered on the basis of fake PAN card details. These fake companies were then used to generate e-way bills (GST related receipts for transporting consignments), officials said.
With the latest arrests, the number of those held in connection with the fraud is now 29, officers said.
“During interrogation of the 24 suspects who were arrested earlier since the fraud came to fore in June, and with the help of evidences, we deduced the involvement of four more people and they were arrested from Trinagar, Delhi, on Thursday,” deputy commissioner of police (Noida) Harish Chander said.
“From them, data of 250 bogus companies which were used to fraudulently claim input tax credit has been recovered, while around ₹3 crore in eight bank accounts linked to these suspects has been freezed by the police,” he said.
Some of the shell companies had even shown import and export business on documents with companies based in Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand and Philippines, the police said.
The arrested suspects have been identified as Rahul Nigam (29), Piyush Kumar Gupta (36), both residents of Shahdara in Delhi, Dilip Sharma (29) from Indralok, Delhi, and Rakesh Kumar (47) from Pitampura, Delhi.
“Earlier, tax benefits worth ₹4,000 crore, claimed on behalf of bogus companies linked to the case, were freezed by police and GST department and around 3,350 bogus companies have emerged in the probe and the financial transactions shown by them are upwards of ₹15,000 crore so far,” said Shakti Avasthy, additional deputy commissioner of police, Noida.
The suspects have been booked under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 467, 468 and 471 (all related to forgery), 120 B (party to criminal conspiracy), police said.
The police have also recovered 41 forged stamps, 54 SIM cards, 18 forced Aadhaar cards, 16 forged PAN cards, 20 bank cheque books from the possession of suspects.
The ADCP further said police have declared a reward of ₹25,000 each on the arrest of nine suspects who are on the run in multi-crore GST fraud.
The nine absconding suspects have been identified as Anchit Goyal, Pradeep Goyal, Arjit Goyal, Praveen, Vikas Dabas and Rohit Nagpal -- all residents of Delhi -- and Kunal Mehta, Baldev -- residents of Hisar district in Haryana -- and Ashish Alawadi, a resident of Sirsa district.
DCP Chander said,”A person named Nishant Agarwal has been identified as the prime suspect of the gang who provided them with data for floating bogus companies. As per our investigation, the gang made fake e-bills for ITC worth rupees ₹70-80 lakh daily in the past four or five months.”
Rajneesh Verma, assistant commissioner of police-1, Noida, said, “Nishant is currently at large and is suspected to have relocated to Mumbai in order to evade arrest. Further, in order to evade police, the suspects have registered the forged companies on locations where they do not actually work from. For example, one of the companies is registered in Pitampura, whereas the suspects worked out of Shahdara.”
Officials said that the suspects were produced before a magistrate and sent to judicial custody on Thursday.
[The Hindustan Times]
