IPhone Scam Worth Rs 64 Crore: Teenager’s Fake GST Billing Fraud Busted in Faridabad:

IPhone Scam Worth Rs 64 Crore: Teenager’s Fake GST Billing Fraud Busted in Faridabad The Faridabad Court has refused the bail of a 19-year-old teenager accused of Rs. 64 Crore fraud on Central GST for more than two years, who was using bogus electricity bills to show the sale of iPhones and register two fake companies in the name of his grandmother and house help. The teenager is recognised by the name Sanket Mittal and was arrested on May 6. According to the officials, 19-year-old Sanket Mittal and 34-year-old Naveen Tayal fraudulently sourced data (iPhone IMEI numbers) regarding the sale of iPhones from e-commerce sites like Amazon, Flipkart, and Appario. They used this data on fake bills to pretend that his companies had sold iPhones to other fake companies. This allowed him to wrongly claim tax refunds.

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Sanket also created fake bills that showed he was transporting iPhones worth Rs. 5.9 crore using Haryana Roadways buses, but this transportation never really took place. The officials said, "The two accused were changing their location over the course of weeks and were difficult to trace. Both have now been remanded in judicial custody by the Faridabad district court for 14 days." The two accused pretended to sell iPhones through a fake company. This company was registered using a fake electricity bill, and they claimed to transport iPhones worth crores of rupees, even though no real phones were actually moved. According to Harpreet Singh from the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST), the accused claimed ITC on the purchase of iPhones from different suppliers. They claimed a total of Rs. 60 crore in tax credit, out of which Rs. 30.4 crore was claimed just between December 2023 and March 2024. But these claims were made using fake invoices, meaning the goods mentioned in the bills did not actually exist.

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Two individuals came under the radar of GST officials in Faridabad because they claimed a very high amount of tax credit. A quick crackdown led the GST department team to discover two fake companies named Balaji Mobile Addition and Monit Enterprises, which had created fake bills to cheat the government of Rs. 64.2 crore in GST. When the department contacted Apple India to check the bills, they confirmed that those iPhones had actually been sold to e-commerce websites and then to regular customers. The team investigated over 8,000 iPhone IMEI numbers and tracked their actual resale history. They discovered that none of the companies involved in the fake billing had ever legally bought those phones. Also, the local electricity company (Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam) confirmed that the power bills used to set up the firms were fake; those customers never existed. GST officers also checked transport records. The e-way bills (used to show movement of goods) said that the phones were transported using certain vehicles, but those vehicles were either invalid or had their registration numbers misused. Officials said, "For instance, iPhones worth Rs 5.4 crore were listed as moved by Haryana Roadways buses."

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The judge of the Faridabad Court said, "Looking into the gravity and seriousness of the alleged offences and without commenting on the merits of the case, the applicant is not entitled to the grant of regular bail at this stage."