Bogus firms, fraudulent iGST claims found in pan-India raids at 336 locations

In a joint operation, the Director General of GST Intelligence and the Director General of Revenue Intelligence have found dozens of bogus firms and exporters who were fraudulently claiming Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) from the government. The raids were conducted on Wednesday by 1,200 officers at 336 different locations spread across 27 cities. It showed a potential fraud of around Rs 470 crore of input tax credit on an invoice of Rs 3,500 crore. Most of these firms were small businesses. “Out of the 198 companies we checked, 78 did not exist,” said a top government official aware of the matter who did not wished to be named. The largest cache of bogus firms were found in west Delhi. Of the 53 firms searched in the capital, 46 did not exist.