Gujarat GST, ATS raid 205 premises & question 91 in 1,200 cr credit scam

Ahmedabad: Gujarat State Goods and Service Tax (GST) in a joint operation with the Anti-Terrorist Squad and Crime branch were on Sunday carrying out searches at more than 205 premises owned by 115 firms and were also questioning 91 people in an alleged Rs 1,200 crore credit scam.

The search has been going on since Saturday morning and some officers of the GST were also being questioned by the search teams for their alleged involvement.

According to the department’s sources, searches were going on in 14 districts simultaneously. These companies were involved in scrap metal, chemicals and iron rods. These firms were creating fake bills of transactions and claiming huge credits from the state government. At least 91 people of various firms were being questioned and information was sought from them by the search teams.

Officers have seized documents, bill books, laptops, pen drives and have retrieved data from cloud facilities to track down the fake transactions and cash money movement. Primary information is that the scam was going on for the last six months in Ahmedabad, Surat, Bhavnagar, Vadodara, and search teams have apprehensions that without officers’ involvement such a large-scale scam would not have lasted for so long.

-IANS