By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 6 Mar: In a first of its kind search and seizure operation that involved digital tracking, forensic audit and electronic surveillance, the Uttarakhand State GST Department has unearthed an organised racket of dubious traders in Jaspur area of Udham Singh Nagar district. The raid was conducted on Saturday. During the search and seizure operation, it was revealed that the racket had floated several fake firms to give legal cover to illegitimate sale-purchase of timber and its products and caused a tax evasion worth at least Rs 20 crore. The team members claim that this figure of tax evasion is likely to go up further when the investigation progresses further. Prima facie, the turnover involved is estimated to be over 100 crore with evasion of over 18 crore rupees of tax.
The department had pressed into service 27 teams with over 300 officers which included forensic and financial technology experts who raided 27 commercial establishments, residences, transporters, advocates and chartered accountants. The investigators from Special Investigation Bureau, who have been tracking the illegal network of these activities for the past nine months, believe that since the Goods and Service Tax was implemented in India in 2017, some people initially worked out a plan to evade the new tax system and provide legal cover to raw materials procured from the black market. The investigators suspect involvement of bank officials in opening up of dubious accounts without proper KYC process.
Ranveer Singh, Joint Commissioner, Special Investigation Bureau, felt that the modus operandi has been to float fake firms which worked on paper only. Companies dealing in timber were sourcing raw materials from the grey market and using these fake firms as their genuine suppliers by getting purchase orders and bills from them. They paid input tax credit to these fake firms which caused a huge loss to the government.
Udham Singh Nagar district is one of the biggest timber markets in the country and timber and its products are supplied to all over the country from here. Investigators suspect the involvement of various other people from other states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh among others. The syndicate has been found to be involved in creating fake firms by misusing the documents of others and allegedly causing huge loss of revenue. The nexus was involved in passing on fake input tax credit on the basis of paper trading by generating fake invoices and without actual supply of goods to Bijnor, Rampur, Moradabad, Saharanpur in UP and Yamunanagar in Haryana.
Considering the spread of the illegal network to far off places and involvement of people from multiple professional fields, the department involved digital and forensic experts who normally assist the country’s premier investigating agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate.
Rajneesh Yashwasthi, Deputy Commissioner, Special Investigation Bureau admitted that the search and seizure operation started at 11 am on Saturday and continued till late night. Teams have seized substantial amounts of documents, electronic devices like mobile phones, laptops, tablets, stamps, bill books, ATM/Debit/ Credit Cards, cheque books, signed blank cheques etc that were found during the search operation.
The district administration, local police along with forest and electricity department extended their full cooperation to the operation which was launched under the directions of Commissioner Tax, Uttarakhand Dr Ahmed Iqbal and led on ground by Addl Commissioner Kumaon BS Nagnyal.
