The Prakasam police busted a major mining racket with the arrest of 16 persons at Martur in the district on Saturday.
Probe revealed tax evasion to the tune of ₹100 crore by the accused who did illegal granite business for about ₹900 crore after floating fictitious firms under the jurisdiction of the Commercial Tax Offices (CTOs) in Addanki, Chirala, Ongole-I and II under the new GST regime, Superintendent of Police Siddharth Kaushal told the media here.
The offenders had allegedly evaded payment of commercial tax and mining royalty to the tune of ₹100 crore by transporting 6.38 lakh square feet of mined material through fake bills. They had concealed the volume and value of the mined material and generated 25,000 E-waybills after creating 17 email accounts using 26 mobile phones.
Probe further revealed that more than 100 persons, including 23 ‘granite markers’ were involved in the racket, said the SP who constituted a Special Investigating Team (SIT) under Chirala DSP Y. Jayaramasubba Reddy to probe the case.
Fictious firms
Taking advantage of the State government’s Ease of Doing Business policy, they had allegedly floated 278 fictitious firms and generated Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TINS) with the help of forged documents including rental agreements, Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, electricity bills and bank account passbooks, the SP said.
“We are working in close coordination with the mining and tax authorities to unravel the racket in full,” he said, adding legal action would also be taken against the officials who had colluded with the offenders. More arrests would follow as the SIT was in the process of collecting strong evidence to build a strong case.
The offenders were identified as Y.Ravi (30), Patan Arifulla (25), Sk. Shabbir(26), K.Satish (33), G. Hemanth (32), A. Ravikumar (36), V. Jellaih (30), Patan Jani Basha (21), Sk. Raheem (26), K. Sivaprasad (23), G. Bhargav (26), C. Karthik (24), P. Ravikumar (52), B. Chinnababu (40), K. Srinivasa Rao (32) and K. Chandramohan (40).
