The Surat Economic Offences (EO) Wing Thursday arrested one of the main conspirators behind the alleged Input Tax Credit (ITC) scam involving fake transactions worth Rs 900 crore.
Sufiyan Kapadia, a Surat resident who had been evading the police, was caught from the Adajan area by the Surat EO.
During investigations, the officials had found that Kapadia and based tax consultant Dharmesh Gandhi had formed nearly 100 fake firms and showed internal transactions worth Rs 900 crore between them to avail ITC under GST.
“Sufiyan Kapadia and Dharmesh Gandhi were linked to the gang arrested earlier. Kapadia has been involved in making fake documents of business transactions between 100 firms internally. It was Kapadia who was directing Gandhi to pass on the ITC to different firms. Gandhi is a tax consultant operating from Ahmedabad involved in filing IT and GST returns of different customers,” said Surat EO Cell Assistant Commissioner of Police VK Parmar.
According to sources, Gandhi is bed-ridden and paralysed and working from his house in Ahmedabad.
“We have prepared our investigation reports and have forwarded them to GST officials. We have also intimated about this scam to Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials. The GST officials will probe how much ITC had been illegally availed and forwarded to different firms,” he added.
A cheating complaint was registered with the Surat Crime Branch on October 19 last year against a group of people involved in creating fake firms on the basis of fake documents. They availed Input Tax Credit from the government by showing fake transactions between the fake firms.
The Surat EO Cell has so far arrested 18 people from different parts of the state for their alleged involvement in creating 1,500 fake firms showing business worth Rs 2,700 crore to get ITC. While 1,300 of the 1,500 firms are from different parts of Gujarat, the remaining are from 15 different states.
Original Published by:
