Director General of GST Intelligence, Visakhapatnam zone unit, busted a major fake input tax credit (ITC) racket being operated from Proddatur, according to a release issued by DGGI Joint Director Mayank Sharma here on Thursday.
The accused, who is 38 years old, was involved in issuing fake invoices to the tune of ₹84 crore using three fraudulent GST registrations (without the knowledge of the proprietors) and was in turn getting commission from the recipient firms of such fake invoices.
Various firms created with fictitious addresses in and around Guntur were identified and simultaneous searches carried out. The searches revealed that the mastermind behind the creation of these firms had passed on ineligible ITC of ₹13 crore to various business entities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The accused was located after sustained field work and was arrested on Thursday. Further investigation is under way.
Recently the DGGI intensified its efforts to curb fake ITC rackets which led to a lot of tax evasion. In the last month alone, 11 cases were booked involving detection of 56 dummy and non-existent GST registrations. These detections involved fake transactions to the tune of ₹527 crore involving duty evasion of ₹50 crore. Four persons were also arrested in these cases.
