Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Commercial tax department busted an illegal bullion trade racket in Madhya Pradesh on Friday. The department’s data command and control center has detected illegal bullion trade worth Rs 375 crore during the last 6 to 8 months, said the officials. Action is being taken by the department after closely examining more than 400 analytical reports available on Business Intelligence and Fraud Analytics (BIFA)/Gain, e-way bill and GST portal, they added.
Under the direction of Commercial Tax Commissioner Lokesh Kumar Jatav and Special Tax Commissioner Rajni Singh, after intensive data analysis from the businessmen involved in the trade of high value item 'bullion', it was found that through an organized network of bullion (gold and silver) in the state GST registration has been obtained on the documents of his personal employees like domestic servants/driver or other persons. The documents of these employees were used to open bank accounts. Bullion was purchased in large quantities from registered traders after obtaining GST registration. After that, these bullions were found to be sold to private consumers by issuing fake bills. In the first phase, 7 suspected bullion traders identified by the department were found to be engaged in bullion related business of about Rs 375 crore in a period of 6 to 8 months. All this bullion was also said to be sold to private consumers during this period.
Search action was taken on suspicious firms under the GST Act. In this action, no commercial activity was found to be conducted at the business places of 6 suspected firms located in Satna, Katni, Jabalpur and Chhatarpur. Due to cancellation of registration by a firm on its own, the search operation was not done. About 724 kg of bullion was traded by these suspicious firms and bullion ranging from 5 to 10 grams was shown to be sold by issuing fake bills to unregistered persons.
