A man was arrested by the Aluva Cyber police on Saturday on the charge of siphoning off about ₹2 crore by creating bogus companies and forging documents for taking illegal advantage of the input tax credit under the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
The arrested was identified as Sanjay Singh, 43, of North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal. He is accused of forging documents and registering two fake companies in the name of Saji who runs a hotel in Binanipuram.
The accused, allegedly, committed fraud using the GST bills of these companies. This was done by forging documents showing transactions for the purchase and sale of goods between the two fake companies and other similarly created bogus companies.
Saji had the shock of his life when he received a liability notice for ₹2 crore from the GST office. He promptly lodged a petition with the Binanipuram police and they registered a case. The case was then handed over to the Aluva Cyber police for a comprehensive probe at the orders of District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural) Vivek Kumar. Subsequently, a special team was also formed.
In the ensuing probe, it emerged that fake companies were created to avoid paying GST for actual business by illegally claiming input tax credit using the bogus companies.
“The fraud was unearthed when there was a delay in filing GST returns for the fake companies and GST officials turned suspicious of their credentials. On contacting Saji, GST officials were convinced that he had nothing to do with those companies. When we examined the documents, it was found that while the addresses of the companies were that of Saji, the corresponding mobile numbers were from West Bengal,” said Cyber police sources.
A special cyber team was able to track down the accused to a flat in Kolkata only during their second visit. It has since emerged that Saji had submitted Aadhaar card, PAN card, and KSEB bills while applying for online loans from various mobile loan apps. One of those loan apps could have leaked his personal documents.
A further probe also proved that the companies shown to have done transactions with the companies registered in the name of Saji were also fake. In fact, it emerged that six of those companies were found to be registered in the name of the accused.
“We suspect a racket to be behind the fraud, which is now rampant across the country. The accused we arrested is probably from the second rung and the key accused remain yet to be nabbed,” said sources.
A team led by inspectors M.B. Latheef and K.R. Mohandas, sub-inspector T.M. Soofi, and senior civil police officers P.M. Thalhath, Syam Kumar, Ratheesh and Subhash made the arrest.
