The State GST enforcement wing on Thursday nabbed one of the kingpins involved in the Rs 641-crore fake invoice racket. The accused, identified as Basanta Kumar Patnaik, was arrested from Bhubaneswar.
The GST wing was on the lookout for Patnaik for the past one and a half years. He was also involved in a fraud case which is currently being investigated.During grilling, Patnaik confessed that he lured gullible and poor people like plumbers, drivers, unemployed youth and homemakers with promises of jobs and high income in Angul, Rourkela, Sundargarh, Jagatsinghpur and Jharkhand. Thereafter, he collected their Aadhaar cards, PAN cards and bank passbooks. Using the documents, he made a GST registration and opened current accounts in different banks.
Later, Patnaik in nexus with other accused generated fake invoices and availed input tax credit, the GST.
Earlier, two accused Sujit Maitra and Gurudip Dang were arrested in connection with the case. While Dang was the managing partner of Tirupati Traders, Maitra was a partner of Rourkela-based Satguru Metals.
The accused had allegedly generated fake invoices of Rs 641 crore by floating fake firms and availed input tax credit of Rs 115 crore, said the Commissionerate of Commercial Tax and GST in a release.