DGGI busts Rs 520 crore fake tax-invoice scam; two arrested

The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI), Mumbai Zone, on Thursday has arrested two persons in a bogus Input Tax Credit (ITC) claim case for defrauding the government to the tune of Rs 520 crore.

According to the DGGI, Sunil Gutte, managing director of Sunil Hi-tech along with his business associate Vijendra Ranka, has been engaged in availing and utilising ITC based on bogus invoices, issued without any supply or receipt of goods or services.

“It is revealed on the basis of enquiry that Sunil Hi-tech Engineers Ltd has availed fraudulent ITC to the tune of Rs 304 crore from multiple entities and has passed on fraudulent ITC to the tune of Rs 216 crore to multiple entities, based on bogus invoices issued, without any receipt/supply of goods/ services,” the release said.

It said Sunil Hi-tech is under investigation in other zonal units of DGGI also for availing and passing on ITC fraudulently and the main objective appears to be to artificially inflate the turnover and obtain enhanced credit limit from the bank and/or loans.

Further, Gutte is the son of a sitting MLA and is the director of Sunil Hi-tech and the main mastermind of this vast fraud network and brother of a movie director, who too was arrested by DGGI, Mumbai Zone in August 2018 for fraudulent availing of credit and taking IGST refund in a fraudulent manner.

Also, in 2017, his father who owned a sugar mill was also booked by Maharashtra police and Enforcement Directorate in a case for allegedly availing loans worth Rs 328 crore from six banks, using names of 2,298 farmers, some of whom were dead, from some villages in Parbhani district.