Ludhiana, Jun 20 (PTI) Five people were booked allegedly for being involved in faking GST invoices worth Rs 3,000 crore, police said on Saturday.
The accused were identified as Amit Kumar Goyal, his brother Manish Kumar, and Gaurav Aggarwal, all of them residents of Mandi Gobindgarh, and Gurdeep Singh and Balwant Singh, residents of Lohar Majra in Fatehgarh Sahib.
The case was registered at the complaint of the Enforcement Directorate assistant director Suraj Kumar Yadav, the police said.
The five allegedly floated dozens of shell firms using identical addresses, phones and emails to create a money trail.
According to the complaint, they raised fake GST invoices and layered payments through multiple entities before they landed in Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) bank accounts maintained with IDFC First Bank.
Cash was withdrawn in bulk from the bank to avoid tax deduction at source, mandated under the Income Tax Act.
The accused used at least 25 accounts to withdraw Rs 3,089.57 crore.
The data of fraudulent transactions was investigated by the Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI).
The accused had floated 27 bogus firms to claim Rs 108.49 crore fake input tax credit against Rs 720.97 crore bogus billing. Two firms used Amit’s PAN, and the rest used KYC of financially weak persons, the police said.
Investigators recovered 54 cheque books, 46 ATM cards, 11 PAN cards, stamps, phones and laptops.
Amit Goyal, called an ‘entry operator’ since 2018, allegedly confessed he took payments from firms and returned cash excluding his commission.
There was no movement of goods as transactions were carried out only on paper.
Assistant Sub-inspector Gurmeet Singh said further probe is underway. PTI COR CHS VN VN
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