HYDERABAD: In a first, the Enforcement officers of the Telangana Commercial Taxes department arrested a Ghaziabad-based dealer for evading GST of Rs 20.08 crore.
Kaushik Shakthi Baburam was nabbed on August 23 and has been remanded to judicial custody for 14 days, ie; till September 5, 2019, after officials found out that the 35-year-old has floated 21 firms all over India, including the four in Telangana.
None of these were found to be existent or operational.
Of the 21 firms, 12 were registered with the GSTN on his name, 3 in his wife's name and 6 were registered in the name of his accomplice who is yet to be caught.
The sleuths who were keeping a watch on Baburam's activities for some time found out that he had registered his first company only in January 2019 and that he had registered his four companies in Telangana only since March 2019.
The case is seen to be peculiar because the sleuths detected inward as well as outward tax frauds.
Baburam has been operating from Delhi and sending goods to Telangana while trying to trick officials by creating a chain of firms in different states.
According to an official, huge loads of scrap metal is sent out from Telangana. Fake invoices worth Rs 150 crore is generated to avail input tax credit fraudulently.
That apart, various kinds of consumer goods from electrical goods, cupboard, stove were brought into the State without declaring sales. "Name it and you have them. Huge number of goods are brought into Telangana but no sales are shown. They are also not available in any godowns, which means he has given it all away to various parties under zero," added the official.
Explaining further, he said, "when goods are sent from Hyderabad to Delhi without paying IGST, it is a huge loss to the State as our share of IGST is gone to the other state.
Similarly, if goods are brought in without declaring them, there is a loss of CGST as well as SGST."
The registered addresses of other firms are in Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu etc. and officials have already initiated the process of alerting their counterparts regarding the fraud.
The investigation and operation was carried out by Dr. R.Yedukondalu, Deputy Commissioner, Enforcement and his team under the supervision of M.S.Reddy, Special Commissioner, Enforcement, Telangana.
Further investigation is on to find out more and involvement of any mastermind behind the fraud.