Lucknow: Hardoi Police on Saturday arrested three Delhi natives for orchestrating a GST fraud involving fake firms and fraudulent input tax credit (ITC) claims worth Rs 16.5 crore. The accused allegedly created shell companies and showed fictitious purchase and sale transactions on paper to evade taxes.The case was registered on June 24 last year at Kotwali City police station on a complaint filed by state tax department deputy commissioner Ravindra Kumar. Police recovered two laptops and three mobile phones from the three accused — Himanshu Kumar of Rajouri Garden, Nishant Dargan of Hari Nagar, and Yogendra Singh Fatryal of Vinod Nagar. Investigations revealed the accused registered bogus firms in Hardoi using forged documents and conducted fake transactions through a firm named ‘Quick N Book Company’.Officials said one such firm, Ali Enterprises, was registered in Hardoi on Jan 1, 2024, purportedly for garment business. Scrutiny of GST filings revealed that in Mar 2025, the firm showed fake purchases worth Rs 66.6 crore from a Ghaziabad-based firm and fraudulently claimed ITC worth Rs 16.5 crore.Further probe found that neither actual goods were supplied, nor any tax deposited. The probe also exposed involvement of other firms indicating a wider network of fake billing and tax evasion.Police said the arrested persons created a chain of fictitious transactions across multiple firms to illegally claim ITC benefits, causing substantial loss to the exchequer.
