Odisha: GST invoice fraud worth Rs 641 cr, 3rd mastermind arrested
Bhubaneswar: The State GST Enforcement Wing arrested the third mastermind, Basant Kumar Pattnaik, who is the co-accused in the multi crore fake invoicing racket worth Rs 641 crore which involved availing and passing of bogus ITC worth Rs 115.10 crores.
Pattnaik has been arrested in Bhubaneswar and taken to Rourkela to be produced before the Judicial Magistrate today.
Earlier in July, two other masterminds in relation with this case were arrested who were identified as the managing partner of Tirupati Traders Gurdit Dang and authorized representative of Satguru Metals & Power Limited and the director of Smartageis Trade Venture Pvt Ltd, Rourkela Sujay Maitra.
Reportedly, the department was in for Pattnaik since last one and half years as he also had involvement in another case which was investigated by Enforcement Unit, Jajpur. He was allegedly involved in creation and operation of six numbers of fake firms.
During Pattnaik’s interrogation, he admitted that he was collecting identity document such as PAN, Aadhar, Bank Passbook, etc., of people like plumbers, drivers, mechanic, unemployed youth, house wife of different areas including Rourkela, Jagatsinghpur, Sundargarh, Angul, etc., under the pretext of engaging them in different companies.
In some cases, in order to provide regular monthly income of Rs. 50,000 per month and misutilised the above stated documents for the purpose of obtaining GST registration and opening of current bank account in different bank banks.
The offences committed by Pattnaik are cognizable and non bailable under section 132(1) (b) (c) & (I) of Odisha Goods And Services Tax Act, 2017 read with section 132(5) of the said act. It is punishable under section 132 (1)(i) of OGST Act,2017.
