Itanagar, March 31 (IANS) The ED provisionally attached properties and assets worth Rs 14.85 crore in West Bengal’s Howrah and Hooghly and in Guwahati in connection with a GST-related fraud involving nearly Rs 100 crore, an official statement said on Tuesday.
The Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Itanagar Sub-Zonal Office, said the attached assets include movable assets in the form of shareholding of the partner of a company called Ganesh International valued at Rs 11.88 crore in a listed entity, along with immovable properties belonging to three other persons, said a statement.
The provisional attachment of assets has been done under the provisions of the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, through an order dated March 30 in connection with Input Tax Credit (ITC) fraud.
A charge sheet was also filed on March 30 against 15 accused for their involvement in fake ITC, the ED said.
The federal probe agency’s investigation is based on an FIR registered for scheduled offences under various sections of the IPC, 1860.
In the present case, search operations were conducted on January 20, 2026, at 10 locations across Arunachal Pradesh, Kolkata, Jharkhand, and Manipur, during which various incriminating evidence was seized, and statements were recorded, the ED said.
The investigation revealed that the company Siddhi Vinayak Trade Merchant is a non-existent shell entity which fraudulently generated fake ITC amounting to approximately Rs 99.31 crore by issuing invoices without any actual supply of goods, the ED said.
The ED probe established that the fake ITC was systematically layered and routed through a network of shell and non-existent entities, including AC Enterprise, Riya Rishita Enterprise, Prince Enterprise, P Enterprise, Rangoli Enterprise, among others, said the statement.
These entities were found to be non-operational at their declared principal places of business, and summons issued to them remained unserved. The investigation also revealed that the same entity issued fake bills of multiple commodities like cement, leather products, electrical items and iron-steel, and a few of them accepted that no sale-purchase took place in relation to that, the ED said.
A detailed investigation into the layering of transactions revealed that Riya Rishita Enterprise, identified as a non-existent entity, fraudulently availed ITC and acted as an intermediary for the transfer of fictitious ITC, the ED said.
Further, it has been established that Ganesh International (now converted to a limited company Ganesh Infraworld Limited) controlled by Vibhoar Agrawal, Phoenix Hydraulics controlled by Dileep Kumar Agrawal, Fama Marketing controlled by Mrig Mrinal Dhawan, and Anjani Impex controlled by Dhaneswar Prasad Yadav, ultimately received and utilised fraudulent ITC amounting to Rs 14.85 crore from the aforesaid fictitious entities without any genuine supply of goods, said the statement.
The said ITC was utilised to discharge GST liabilities on the strength of fabricated invoices and e-way bills, it said.
The beneficiary entities reported disproportionately high turnovers without any commensurate underlying business activity, relying on fake invoices and fraudulently availing the ITC so generated. This clearly indicates a systematic process of layering and laundering of Proceeds of Crime, the ED said.
–IANS
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