Four Arrested for GST Fraud of Rs. 10,000 Crore

The Noida police arrested 4 individuals on Thursday and said they caught another gang that claimed to be involved in the 10,000 crore GST (Goods and Services Tax) fraud, which involved registering thousands of fictitious companies using hacked or fake identities and then using these firms to raise e-way bills and claim ITC from the government. According to authorities, the four suspects were caught in Trinagar, Delhi, on Thursday.

Previously, in June, the Noida police arrested eight people and recovered a list of over 3,000 fictitious companies created based on bogus PAN card details. According to investigators, these bogus companies were subsequently used to generate e-way bills (GST-related receipts for carrying consignments).

The latest arrests bring the total number of people being held in connection with the fraud to 29, according to authorities.

“We deduced the involvement of four more people during the investigation of the 24 suspects who were arrested before the fraud came to light in June, and they were arrested from Trinagar, Delhi, on Thursday,” Harish Chander (Deputy Commissioner of Police, Noida) said.

“From them, data of 250 fake companies that were used to illegally claim Input Tax Credit (ITC) has been recovered, while around Rs. 3 crore in eight bank accounts related to these suspects has been frozen by the police,” the official added.

According to the authorities, some of the shell companies had even indicated import and export business on documents with companies situated in Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Rahul Nigam (29), Piyush Kumar Gupta (36), both of them from Shahdara in Delhi, Dilip Sharma (29) from Indralok in Delhi, and Rakesh Kumar (47) of Pitampura in Delhi have been identified as the suspects.

“Initially, tax benefits worth Rs. 4,000 crore, claimed on behalf of fictitious companies related to the case, were frozen by the police and GST departments, and around 3,350 fake companies have emerged in the investigation, and the financial transactions shown by them are upwards of Rs. 15,000 crore so far,” said Shakti Avasthy, an additional deputy commissioner of police.

According to police, the suspects were booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 420 (cheating), 467, 468, and 471 (all connected to forgery), and 120 B (participant in criminal conspiracy).

In addition, the police recovered 41 fake stamps, 54 SIM cards, 18 forced Aadhaar cards, 16 forged PAN cards, and 20 bank cheque books from the possession of suspects.

The ADCP further stated that police had offered a reward of Rs. 25,000 each for the arrest of nine criminals wanted in a multi-crore GST fraud.

Anchit Goyal, Pradeep Goyal, Arjit Goyal, Praveen, Vikas Dabas, and Rohit Nagpal are all residents of Delhi, as are Kunal Mehta and Baldev, both residents of Haryana’s Hisar district, and Ashish Alawadi, a native of Sirsa district.

A person named Nishant Agarwal has been identified as the main suspect of the gang who gave them data for establishing bogus companies, stated DCP Chander. According to our inquiry, the gang has been creating fraudulent e-bills for ITC worth Rs 70-80 lakh every day for the previous four or five months.”

Nishant is currently in hiding and is suspected of having moved to Mumbai in order to avoid arrest, said Rajneesh Verma, assistant commissioner of police-1, Noida.

Furthermore, in order to avoid detection, the suspects registered the bogus firms at addresses where they do not actually work. One of the companies, for example, is registered in Pitampura, but the suspects worked out of Shahdara.

On Thursday, the suspects were brought before a magistrate and sent to judicial custody, according to officials.