DGGI Arrest Ludhiana based Businessman for Rs.347 Crore Fake GST Billing Scam

The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), Zonal Unit in Punjab’s Ludhiana, has detained a Subhash Nagar businessman for his involvement in the Rs.347 crore fake billing scandal.

Rahul Bassi appeared before a duty magistrate court on Friday and was remanded in judicial jail for fourteen days.

According to reliable sources, the DGGI discovered that Bassi played a significant part in the case of Rs.347 crore in bogus mobile phone billing and Rs. 63 crore in GST evasion, which led to his detention on Thursday.

The accused, who is thought to be one of the masterminds, collaborated with Vishal Rai (who was arrested on January 7th, 2023 and is currently in judicial detention) in the formation of more than twenty-five dummy firms in the names of other people, without their knowledge or agreement.

Both accused are suspected of being involved in obtaining and issuing invoices without receipt, supply of goods leading to wrongful availment of inadmissible Input Tax Credit (ITC) amounting to Rs.63 crore through three firms operated by Vishal Rai in collusion with Rahul Bassi.

According to sources, according to Vishal Rai’s account, Bassi was his 50% partner in the money earned from such GST fraud.

It has also been revealed that on January 10, 2023, the DGGI performed a search at Bassi’s home, but he and his family left after closing the door.

The DGGI had to force through the locks, and officials discovered various journals in which details of transactions worth crores of rupees gained from the fake billing scam were written in Bassi’s handwriting.

In this case, the DGGI has terminated the registrations of over 30 entities from jurisdictional GST authorities that were discovered to be participating in this fraud, fraudulent, non-existent phoney during the course of the inquiry.

A tax practitioner accepted Rs 95 lakh as bribe money for GST officials. According to sources close to the probe, a prominent advocate-cum-GST practitioner in Ludhiana was charging them Rs.14 lakh per firm for the liquidation of each such firm when its sales exceeded Rs.22-23 crore.

They also say that the accused took Rs.95 lakh from them over the course of two months in the pretext of bribe money for GST officials, of which Rs.25 lakh was collected through banking channels.

It has also been learned that another reputed advocate with an office near DMC Hospital took Rs.12 lakh from Rahul Bassi following Vishal Rai’s arrest with the promise of getting him a clean chit from DGGI.