Chennai: Man prepares fake GST receipts worth crores, arrested after huge cache of forged documents found
A man named Sujaram, who hailed from Rajasthan, managed to issue GST tax receipts worth Rs 2000 crores and managed tax evasion worth Rs 265 crore through them.
Chennai: A massive scam involving alleged forgery of fraudulent GST receipts has been unearthed in a number of companies in and around Chennai. The fraud has been allegedly carried out by a man named Suresh Devadasi who has since been arrested.
Devadasi had been absconding ever since it was discovered that he had engineered this economic offence with the view to make a quick buck by providing fake GST receipts to companies that wanted to evade tax.
Devadasi, who also went by the name Sujaram from Yezhukinaru, originally hailed from Barmer district of Rajasthan. He had synergised with people from several factories operating in the north Chennai region with the offer to cheat the Central Excise department of tax. He managed to issue GST tax receipts worth Rs 2000 crores and managed tax evasion worth Rs 265 crore through them.
When the GST and Central Excise officials discovered the fraud, Central Excise Deputy Commissioner Harshanand formed a special team last week to arrest Sujaram. It was soon learnt that the main suspect had gone underground and may be hiding at his native place, Barmer. He was tracked down, arrested, and later presented before the Jodhpur Special Court to seek permission to bring him to Chennai.
Once in Chennai, Sujaram was presented before the Economic Offenses court. After enquiry, the Judge ordered that the accused be taken into judicial custody for 15 days. Later, the GST and Central Excise officials interrogated Sujaram to learn of the expanse and reach of the scam, the modus operandi and the names of those involved. The probe is still going on.
This is not the first crime of its nature that has been reported in the country. The Intelligence wing of Central Board of Indirect Taxes arrested three persons from Ahmedabad in a Rs 400 scam of fake billing involving fraudulent utilisation of Rs 70 crore worth of Input Credit Tax (ITC), last week, reports DNA.