Officers from the Directorate General of GST Intelligence, Visakhapatnam, arrested a 34-year-old resident of Hyderabad who had allegedly set up 20 fake entities to run a fake input tax credit racket, here on Thursday.
According to a release from the GST Intelligence office, the entities were predominantly set up in the districts of Guntur and Hyderabad and were used to create a complex network of fake ITC (input tax credit) generating entities in different levels. They were spread across different States in a bid to camouflage the fraudulent transactions.
The entities were managed by the accused who generated fake invoices to the tune of ₹265 crore, involving passing of fake ITC to many functional companies to the tune of ₹31 crore, enabling them to fraudulently utilise the same and evade payment of taxes.
The mastermind was arrested after sustained field work by the intelligence officials and was remanded in judicial custody.
Since November 2020, there has been a country-wide special drive against such ITC frauds by DGGI and CGST field offices. The Visakhapatnam DGGI zonal unit has registered several cases and unearthed close to 180 fake companies, leading to detection of tax evasion to the tune of ₹160 crore. Five persons were arrested in this connection and ₹60 crore recovered, according to officials.
