Odisha GST Authorities Bust Fake Invoicing Racket Of 712 Cr, Kingpin Nabbed From Sambalpur

Bhubaneswar: The GST enforcement authorities busted a racket involving fake invoicing of Rs 712 crore and arrested the kingpin from Odisha’s Sambalpur on Monday.

The mastermind has been identified as Kashmira Kumar Agrawal, Director of Madhumita Steels Industries Pvt Ltd.

According to official sources, Agarwal was under the scanner of State GST Enforcement Squad since long. To avoid being caught, he used to frequently change his address from Rourkela to Haryana, Tata and Sambalpur. After rigorous exercise by the enforcement squad, he was finally nabbed at Sambalpur.

Some of the accused involved in the racket have been arrested earlier.

On tracking a chain of the fraudulent transaction followed by scrutiny of suspected e-waybill transactions and collection of intelligence, physical inspections were carried out simultaneously at 14 business establishments. These were, however, found to be non-existent and fictitious.

During interrogation, proprietors of these fake firms admitted that they were neither doing any business nor effecting any purchases/sales in the name of their firms and the transactions reflected in their returns were only paper transactions without any actual receipt and supply of goods. All of them also categorically admitted that they had neither deposited nor withdrawn any amount from the bank account opened in the name of their firm.

The banking transactions in the name of the firms had been undertaken by the mastermind by misutilising the signed cheque book and RTGS forms taken from innocent persons in whose name registration had been fraudulently done and in some cases by forging their signature. The bank officials were also interrogated regarding the fraudulent opening of current bank accounts in the name of the above fictitious firms and routing of huge cash transactions. The house owners of the rented place of business of all the fictitious business entities were also confronted. On such interrogation, all the rent agreements were found to be forged, the sources added.