GST wing busts Rs 106 crore bill fraud in Odisha, accused held

By Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: The GST Enforcement Wing on Monday arrested one individual for his alleged involvement in bill fraud to the tune of over Rs 100 crore.

Sources stated, the accused Smruti Ranjan Sahoo, proprietor of SR Enterprises, had allegedly availed enter tax credit score (ITC) of Rs 19.04 crore based mostly on the faux invoices of Rs 106 crore.

The bogus ITC was availed by elevating fraudulent buy invoices in opposition to 14 faux enterprise entities situated in Angul, Jajpur, Rourkela, Jagatsinghpur, Bhubaneswar, and Paradip.

The accused had additionally handed the ITC to the recipients each inside and outdoors Odisha in opposition to the sale of products bought fictitiously by defrauding the state exchequer.

Joint Commissioner of CT and GST (Enforcement, Bhubaneswar) Umesh Chandra Tripathy stated Sahoo had submitted false data relating to the situation of his workplace and in addition solid the hire settlement.

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“His firm SR Enterprises did neither physically exist nor was it involved in any business. The transactions of purchase and sale showed were only on papers. In order to regularise the paper transaction, the accused routed the amount of purchase and sale through his bank account,” he stated.

The scrutiny of Sahoo’s checking account revealed that he has proven receipts of all of the funds made in direction of the fictional sale of products, however his cost in direction of the acquisition of products from non-existing companies was discovered to be negligible.

The mastermind has admitted to having created dummy companies to situation faux invoices and to go bogus ITC by them

“The goods weighing in tonne were shown to have been transported by two-wheelers, three-wheelers and cars on many occasions. Revenue loss to the State exchequer could have been manifold had the fraud not been detected by the Enforcement Wing,” Tripathy stated.

The fraud had initially come to gentle when the Enforcement Wing performed a statewide search operation relating to fictitious companies throughout November and December, final yr. It was discovered that Sahoo together with another co-accused had collected id paperwork like Aadhaar, pan playing cards, images, bankpassbooks from unsuspecting unemployed youths and farmers and misused the paperwork to create and function faux companies.

Commissioner CT and GST Sushil Kumar Lohani have appealed to most people to not share their id paperwork, private, financial institution, and different particulars with any unauthorised individual.