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 In another crackdown, Maharashtra Goods and Services Tax (GST) sleuths arrested a businessmen in connection with an alleged Rs 31 crore GST fraud, a statement said on Friday.

According to a GST statement, accused Anuj Gupta, who has five registered firms, including two in the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, was nabbed from Vile Parle.

He was produced before an Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate which sent him to 14 days judicial custody.

Giving details, the GST Department said that the accused had shown bogus purchases of around Rs 272 crore and available fake Input Tax Credit of more than Rs 31 crore without actually buying goods or services.

The bogus purchases were made through Gupta's registered firms Savvy Fabrics, Shiv Textiles, Shakti Textiles (Maharashtra) and Subhlene Fabrics and Shubhmangal Textiles (in the UT), which even received a refund of over Rs 11 crore.

Suspecting something amiss, the Maharashtra GST, with help from the Dadra and Nagar Haveli GST officials, launched an investigation into the matter.

It emerged that the companies had barely 20 percent of the stocks they claimed they had in their physical possession, while various transporters gave statements that they had not transporters any goods as contended by the five companies using their names.

This is the third major action against persons perpetrating GST frauds in the past three months, involving several companies indulging in such practices causing huge losses to the government.

In November 2020, the GST sleuths nabbed four Mumbai businessmen in a Rs 408 crore scam and on December 30, arrested one more trader for a Rs 185-crore fraud.

The MGST Dept has cautioned that such fraudulent offences are non-bailable with a provision of a jail term upto five years under the GST Act, 2017, and warned errant GST manipulators to comply with the laws.