ITC Fraud: Fake ITC racket of Rs.134 Cr busted by CGST Agra

The Officers of CGST & Central Excise, Agra have busted a racket of bogus firms, engaged in the issuance of bogus invoices without any supply of goods. These firms were engaged in opening Current Bank Accounts on the PAN & AADHAR documents of marginalized persons for routing money against the sale of Fake invoices based on specific intelligence gathered and further developed through Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools (E-Invoice, E-way Bill data, ADVIT, BIFA).

During the investigation, 218 bogus firms have been detected on a pan-India basis. The total transaction value by these firms stands to tune of Rs.750 Crores involving Input Tax Credit (ITC) of & 134 Crores. On July 23, 2023, one of the Masterminds was arrested. More research is being conducted in this matter.

The two-month special campaign to combat fake invoices and GST registration, which started on May 16 and continued till July 15 by GST Department. According to persons with knowledge of the situation, officials were doing door-to-door physical verification of addresses before taking any action.

Earlier, Over 59,000 GSTINs have been verified, while 16,989 are non-existent. More than 11,000 GSTINs have been suspended, and 4,972 registrations were canceled out of these 69,600 GSTINs. In these cases, tax fraud of over Rs.15,000 crore was found, ITC of around Rs.1,506 crore has been blocked, and a tax refund of Rs.87 crore was realized, officials stated.