GST authorities arrest 12 more in ongoing crackdown on fake invoicing

The Directorate General of GST Intelligence and Central GST Commissionerates have arrested 12 persons in a single day in the ongoing drive against fake goods and service tax (GST) invoice frauds, revenue department sources said.

Among those arrested is a chartered accountant who was involved in running fake firms to issue fraudulent invoices.

Several such instances have been unearthed by the authorities earlier where chartered accountants have been involved in bogus firms and/or issuance of fake invoices to fraudulently avail and pass on input tax credit or ITC without actual supplies of goods or services.


Sources said that out of the 329 persons arrested so far, at least four persons have been booked under Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act or COFEPOSA. Arrested persons include fake entities operators and the end beneficiaries who connive with these fraudsters running businesses of fake invoices.

Authorities have booked more than 3200 cases against 9600 fake GSTIN entities so far, recovering over Rs 1000 crore from fraudsters.

Sources added that authorities have been using deep data analytics, integrated data-sharing, artificial intelligence and machine learning tools along with Business Intelligence and Fraud Analytics or BIFA to unearth ITC utilization frauds via fake invoicing and bogus firms.

“The technology has enabled the GST ecosystem and intelligence authorities to identify layer-by-layer activities of these fake entities and their networking without any overreach and able to pinpoint the fraudsters with specific inputs to take targeted actions and further investigations against them,” one of the sources said.

The nationwide drive against fake GST invoice frauds since November 2020 have yielded record GST collections for over the last three months and have fetched record collections of Rs. 1.15 lakh crore in December, 2020 and Rs 1.20 lakh crore in January, 2021.

“Similar higher collection trend to continue in the month of February 2021 as well,” the source added.