GST officers have arrested one person on charges of running multiple fake firms and having passed on fraudulently ITC worth Rs 491 crore, the finance ministry said on Friday.

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The Gurugram Zonal Unit (GZU) of Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) searched the premises of a person who was providing cloud storage facilities to various persons across India, for carrying out their work from remote locations and recovered hard disk.

"Through scrutiny of data contained in hard disk being provided by the cloud storage facility, the identity of the key operative emerged who appeared to be running a nexus of 93 fake firms," the ministry said.

During searches, various firms were found non-existent at their given addresses and the key operative who was actively using the cloud storage service and running the said firms was apprehended from Hansi in Haryana on January 18.

During the investigation, the key operative admitted to have orchestrated the fraud along with other accomplices, the ministry said.

"Based on the verifications, evidences and statements recorded, he appeared to be a key person in the functioning of the racket of creation of fake firms, issuing of invoices without actual supply of goods in respect of 93 fake firms which has led to passing on of fraudulent and inadmissible ITC of Rs 491 crore and thereby, violation of multiple provisions of the CGST Act, 2017," the ministry said.

He was arrested on January 18 and sent to 14-day judicial custody.