DGGI officials burst fake invoices racket involving more than Rs4,500 crore
17 Jan 2022
1
Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) has booked some fake firms, which were found non-existing at their principal place of business, and involved in providing fake invoices,. A search conducted at their premises in Delhi last week revealed that the proprietor is engaged in providing services of ‘Cloud Storage’ on his servers to various customers for maintaining financial accounts.
To trace the real persons behind these fake firms, the physical address from where GST returns were actually filed was ascertained. On scrutiny of one of the suspicious server, details of certain firms were found in tally data. The proprietor has informed that this tally data is being maintained by one syndicate based in Kolkata. The address details of these persons were obtained from the proprietor and then searches were conducted at various premises in Kolkata on 10 January 2022.
During the search huge amount of incriminating documents, including mobile phones, various cheque books, stamps of various firms and SIM cards have been recovered. On analysis of electronic devices, documents, mobiles and e-mails of these persons, it has been found that these persons are remotely maintaining data on the server found at the premises in Delhi.
Scrutiny of Tally data has shown that there are 636 firms being operated by this syndicate. The mastermind of the syndicate has accepted that they have issued only invoices in these firms and not supplied any goods against them. They have issued invoices involving taxable value of approximately Rs4,521 crore having ITC implication of about Rs741 crore.
During the course of investigation, GST amounting to Rs4.52 crore has been found to have been deposited by reversal of ITC available in the ITC ledger of these firms. Further, till now, approximately Rs7 crore lying in various bank accounts of these firms has been frozen. The mastermind behind the whole racket has been arrested. DGGI said further investigation in the case is progressng.
