Dirty game of tax evasion: 1 syndicate, 636 firms, INR 4,521 cr. scam

New Delhi, Jan. 15 (IANS): It seemed more like a crime investigation thriller when the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) busted a planned all-India tax evasion racket and unearthed INR 4,521 crore of tax evasion.

A series of raids and investigation landed the DDGI to Kolkata finally, once infamous as den of fake companies’ racket, in the post demonetisation period.

The DGGI found out that a syndicate was involved in operating about 636 firms, based out of various cities and duping the government through fake tax invoices.

It all started with a case, booked by the DGGI against some fake firms, which were found non existing at their principal place of business.

To trace the real persons behind these fake firms, the physical address from where GST returns were actually filed was ascertained.

A search was conducted on January 6 at that premises in Delhi. During search, it was found that the proprietor is engaged in providing services of ‘Cloud Storage’ on his servers to various customers for maintaining their financial accounts.

On the scrutiny of one of the suspicious servers, details of certain firms were found in Tally data. It was informed by the proprietor that this Tally data is being maintained by one syndicate based in Kolkata.

The address details of these persons were obtained from Proprietor and then searches were conducted at various premises in Kolkata on January 10.

During the search, a huge amount of incriminating documents including mobiles phones, various cheque books, stamps of various firms and SIM cards have been recovered. On analysis of electronic devices, documents, mobiles and e-mail of these persons, it has been found that these persons are remotely maintaining data on the server found at the premises in Delhi.

Scrutiny of Tally data has shown that there are 636 firms being operated by this syndicate. The mastermind of the syndicate has accepted that they have issued only invoices in these firms and not supplied any goods against them.

They have issued invoices involving taxable value of approximately INR 4,521 crore having ITC implication of approx INR 741 crore.

The mastermind behind the whole racket has been arrested and further investigation in the case is under progress.