AHMEDABAD: In the Rs 1,500 crore bogus billing scam, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch on Friday arrested the mastermind, Altaf Sakarwala (32), from Bhavnagar.
Sakwarwala used to operate from a hotel room in Bhavnagar with three others – Shabbir Ali, Hanif Saiyed and Nayeem Lakhani – wherein they used bogus GST registrations and fake bills to illegally claim input tax credit.
Sakarwala alone was responsible for bogus billing of Rs 852 crore.
Lakhani and Shabbir Ali were arrested last month in connection with this case. In connection with the same case, Rajkot police had also arrested Taufik Saiyed and handed him over to the Ahmedabad Crime Branch.
The case came to the fore in November last year when SGST department and the Ahmedabad Crime Branch undertook a joint operation to bust the racket of bogus billing scam. In December 2022, the crime branch registered an offence against six bogus firms under various sections of the IPC including 409, 420, 465, 467, 471 and 120 (B).
Recently, the state home department had also relayed information across police stations across all the districts of Gujarat to arrest the remaining accused in this case.
While the department officials were probing Gajanand Enterprise, some 200 bogus firms came to the fore which involved fake billing of Rs 1,500 crore. While investigating these firms, some 86 more firms were identified by the department officials which were also involved in bogus billing worth an additional Rs 850 crore.
Based on specific intelligence, Sakarwala was detained by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch in Bhavnagar and upon producing him in court, a remand of four days has been approved. The department has also launched a manhunt for two more co-accused in the case, Kashyap Pandya and Hanif Saiyed.
The state and central goods and services tax departments have launched an aggressive drive to identify and nab scamsters involved in fake billing scams as they cause a major loss to the exchequer.
