Senior police officers stated that the Noida Police claimed to have apprehended the “masterminds” of the ₹10,000 crore GST [goods and services tax] fraud case, which surfaced in June of last year, with the arrest of two businessmen from Haryana on Wednesday evening.
The two suspects had fraudulently claimed over ₹26 crore in input tax credit (ITC) from the government, according to Shakti Avasthy, deputy commissioner of police (crime). The police have since taken the ITC out of the suspects’ bank accounts.
On June 1 last year, the Noida police busted a gang suspected of orchestrating the multi-crore fraud. According to police, the gang would register thousands of bogus companies under stolen or fake identities and use them to generate e-way bills and obtain input tax credit (ITC) from the government.
Avasthy, who is leading the investigation in the case, said the two suspects have been identified as Ajay Sharma (28) and Sanjay Jindal (38), both residents of Sonipat, and were arrested on Wednesday from their respective residences.
“The two suspects are multimillionaires, owning metal and scrap factories. Over the last three years, they have caused huge loss to the government by availing of ITCs fraudulently. These businessmen, in order set-off their tax liability, used to claim ITC through bills in the name of bogus firms, which do not exist and were created only for this scam. The two were the end claimants of the input tax credit and had so far caused a loss of over ₹26 crore to the exchequer,” Avasthy said, adding that police have so far arrested 32 suspects in connection with the case.
Jindal is the owner and director of a Sonepat-registered firm called M/s Brownie Metal and Alloys Pvt Ltd which had taken bills from 20 shell firms and claimed a credit of ₹17 crore, he added.
“Sharma, the owner and director of Sonepat-based M/s Crystal Industries, claimed bills from six shell firms and claimed ITC worth over ₹8.5 crore. Earlier this month, the Noida police had declared a reward of ₹25,000 on their arrest,” said Avasthy.
He added that the GST department had earlier detained the two suspects in Sonepat in July on suspicion of stealing revenue.
After we released a list of the gang’s 3,000 fictitious companies, the GST department detained both of these businessmen in July of last year. They were granted bail and released from Haryana’s jail after serving two months. They were detained by the Noida police on criminal charges for orchestrating the scam, according to Avasthy.
According to police, the suspects have been charged under sections 420 (cheating), 467, 468, and 471 (all pertaining to forgery), and 120 B (participating in criminal conspiracy).
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