Prakasam police busted a mining racket with the arrest of four persons at Martur on Tuesday. Probe revealed tax evasion to the tune of ₹85.20 crore by the accused who did granite business for ₹290.49 crore by floating as many as 278 fictitious firms under the jurisdiction of Commercial Tax Offices (CTOs) in Addanki, Chirala, Ongole-I and II and also Chilakaluripeta in neighbouring Guntur district since the new GST regime came into being, Superintendent of Police Siddharth Kaushal said while presenting the accused before the media here. The fraudsters, identified as Venkata Subba Rao (26), C. Ramesh (34), L. Gouri Naidu (26) and Y.Mahendra (29) had allegedly evaded payment of commercial tax to the tune of ₹52.20 crore and mining royalty to the tune of ₹33 crore by transporting 6.38 lakh square feet of mined material through fake bills. They had concealed the volume and value of the mined material in the process, the SP said.
‘Fictitious firms’
Taking advantage of the State government’s Ease of Doing Business policy, they had allegedly floating fictitious firms and generated Taxpayer Identification Numbers(TINS) with the help of forged documents including rental agreements, Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, electricity bills and bank account passbooks, the SP said. The Prakasam police had been probing the case from all angles in close coordination with the Mining, Commercial Taxes and Revenue officials to unravel the enormity of the racket in full, said the SP who formed a special investigation team comprising police officers from Chirala, Addanki, Martur and Medermetala.
“More arrests will follow as a detailed probe is on into the case and in other similar cases in areas where mining of minerals is active,” he added.
