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Ludhiana: 3 held over ₹80-crore fake billing scam
The accused, identified as Rajinder Singh, Manmohan Singh and Rajinder Pal Singh, were arrested on January 28 and have been sent to judicial custody
The local unit of directorate general of GST intelligence (DGGI) bused a fake billing scam worth ₹79.4 crore in the insurance sector, officials said, adding that three individuals were arrested.
They said the scam caused revenue loss of ₹12.1 crore to the government.
The accused, identified as Rajinder Singh, Manmohan Singh and Rajinder Pal Singh, were arrested on January 28 and have been sent to judicial custody. Officials said the arrested accused were the masterminds behind the racket.
A 30-member team from Ludhiana and Amritsar conducted raids on 12 business and residential premises on January 9. Officials recovered incriminating documents proving that multiple firms were registered under ‘dummy’ individuals using fraudulent documents to obtain GST registration.
As the investigation progressed, another raid was carried out on January 20, where 40 officers searched 16 premises in Amritsar. Following this, authorities cancelled GST registrations of 22 fraudulent firms and blocked ₹97 lakh in fake credit obtained through fake billing.
Modus operandi
According to the officers, the accused created multiple fake firms and registered them under the GST Act. They purchased fake bills from suppliers across Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Odisha, West Bengal, Haryana and Rajasthan, and acted as insurance salespersons, selling insurance policies on behalf of brokers from Gurugram and Delhi.
To evade GST on insurance commissions, they conducted bogus transactions and fake billing.
The officials said DGGI has been working to uncover fake billing operations across the state. In the recent months, it has detected fake bills worth over ₹1,500 crore and arrested nine individuals in Ludhiana, Mandi Gobindgarh and Amritsar.
