A massive Goods and Services Tax (GST) fraud worth over Rs 3,000 crore has been uncovered in Punjab, with five individuals booked for their alleged involvement in creating fake GST invoices. The accused, identified as Amit Kumar Goyal, his brother Manish Kumar, Gaurav Aggarwal, Gurdeep Singh, and Balwant Singh, were found to have floated dozens of shell firms using identical addresses, phones, and emails to create a money trail. According to the complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate’s assistant director Suraj Kumar Yadav, the five individuals raised fake GST invoices and layered payments through multiple entities before the funds landed in Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) bank accounts maintained with IDFC First Bank.
To avoid tax deduction at source, mandated under the Income Tax Act, cash was withdrawn in bulk from the bank. The accused allegedly used at least 25 accounts to withdraw Rs 3,089.57 crore. The Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) investigated the data of fraudulent transactions, revealing that the accused had floated 27 bogus firms to claim Rs 108.49 crore fake input tax credit against Rs 720.97 crore bogus billing.
The police recovered 54 cheque books, 46 ATM cards, 11 PAN cards, stamps, phones, and laptops during the investigation. Amit Goyal, reportedly an ‘entry operator’ since 2018, allegedly confessed to taking payments from firms and returning cash excluding his commission. Notably, there was no movement of goods as the transactions were carried out only on paper.
The police are conducting further investigations into the matter.
