ED Complaint Leads to FIR Against Five in Rs 3,000 Crore Fake GST Invoice Fraud

On June 20th, Ludhiana police booked five people for allegedly issuing fake GST invoices amounting to Rs 3,000 crore.

The people accused in the case are Amit Kumar Goyal, his brother Manish Kumar, and Gaurav Aggarwal, all hailing from Mandi Gobindgarh, along with Gurdeep Singh and Balwant Singh, who hail from Lohar Majra, Fatehgarh Sahib.

The case has been registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by Enforcement Directorate Assistant Director Suraj Kumar Yadav, the police said.

In their complaint, the five accused are claimed to have established several shell companies with common addresses, telephone numbers, and email IDs for creating fictitious money flow.

The complainant claimed that the accused had made false GST invoices and then channelled the money through various parties until it finally reached the accounts of the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) maintained by IDFC First Bank.

The Income Tax Act’s tax deduction at source (TDS) clause was reportedly being avoided by withdrawing huge sums of money from the bank accounts. The accused have reportedly utilised 25 bank accounts for withdrawing a total sum of Rs 3,089.57 crore.

These fraud cases became part of the inquiry that was carried out by the DGGI.

As per the police, the alleged criminals have set up 27 dummy companies in order to cheat the government of Rs 108.49 crore in ITC in fake bills of Rs 720.97 crore. While two of the companies have been incorporated in the name of Amit Kumar Goyal’s PAN number, other companies have been set up in the names of poor individuals.

The seizure during the probe included 54 cheque books, 46 ATM cards, 11 PAN cards, stamps, mobile phones, and laptops.

According to police, Amit Goyal, who worked as an “entry operator” since 2018, admitted to accepting the money paid by various companies and then returning the money in cash after charging his commission.

Moreover, it came to light during the course of the probe that there had been no actual movement of goods; only the paperwork had been done.

According to the assistant sub-inspector, the investigation is still ongoing.