Three held for GST fraud, luxury cars, including a Maserati, recovered

In a joint operation, officials from the Sector 20 police station and the crime response team, Noida, arrested three people in the ₹10,000 crore GST [good and services tax] irregularities case on Wednesday, senior police officers said, adding that more than 40 people have been arrested in the case that was registered in last June so far.

According to Shakti Avasthy, deputy commissioner of police (crime), the three suspects are multimillionaires who allegedly claimed input tax credit (ITC) fraudulently by setting up 30 shell companies. In all, it is estimated that they caused a loss of ₹68.15 crore to the exchequer, and a portion of this amount has been seized from their bank accounts, he said.

“The suspects are Sanjay Dhingra (54), his wife Kanika Dhingra (55) and son Mayank Dhingra (27), all residents of east Punjabi Bagh, Delhi. The suspects had been evading police since the past eight or nine months and we had declared a reward of ₹25,000 on their arrest,” Avasthy said.

He further said, “To evade arrest, the suspects used to travel frequently and kept changing hotels and locations. Among the vehicles recovered from their possession is the Italian luxury car Maserati, a Mercedes and a BMW. Recently, they also started a realty business. All three have purchased land worth crores of rupees in Karnal, Haryana, and they also have a farmhouse in Chhatarpur, Delhi.”

Six luxury cars, ₹1.41 lakh cash, seven mobile phones and one tablet have been recovered from the suspects, police said. During interrogation, the suspects claimed that they bought vehicles that would not be readily stopped by police for checks, said the officer.

The three suspects are believed to have been involved in the GST fraud for four to five years, creating nine fake companies and claiming ₹68 crore as input tax credit, said the officer.

“The suspects pretended to be in the dairy business. They have been caught for GST fraud before, but then they would change their company’s name and start again,” Avasthy said.

On June 1 last year, the Noida police busted a gang suspected of orchestrating the multi-crore fraud. According to police, the gang would register thousands of bogus companies under stolen or fake identities and use them to generate e-way bills and obtain ITC from the government.