The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), Jamshedpur unit in a major crackdown on GST fraud, has arrested two businessmen from Ranchi — Kumar Lav Agarwal and Gulbahar Malik — on charges of fraudulent input tax credit (ITC) claims exceeding Rs 11 crore.
The arrests were made following an investigation into fake GST invoices amounting to over Rs 50 crore in bogus purchases and sales. Officials revealed that Kumar Lav Agarwal, a battery dealer and authorized distributor and Gulbahar Malik, a trader of used batteries, conspired to generate fake GST bills without the actual movement of goods.
According to investigators, Malik issued fake GST bills worth Rs 10 crore to Agarwal under a pre-planned scheme. These bills were used to claim undue ITC benefits. The investigation further found that Agarwal had also obtained fake GST invoices from several other traders to claim additional input credit illegally.
DGGI sources confirmed that Malik operated more than a dozen shell firms, including New India Traders, Capital Enterprises, FM Trading, DD Enterprises and Zishan Trading, to issue bogus invoices.
After detailed questioning, both traders were arrested and produced in a Jamshedpur court, where they were sent to judicial custody. The investigation into the network of fake billing and shell companies is ongoing and more arrests are likely.
Source from: https://avenuemail.in/two-ranchi-traders-arrested-from-jamshedpur-in-rs-11-crore-gst-fraud-case/
