The Special Investigation Bureau of Uttarakhand GST department has filed a 3,500-page charge sheet in the court of Rudrapur Chief Judicial Magistrate against Shahnawaz Hussain, the mastermind of the illegal timber trade.
Hussain, who was arrested on October 22, is alleged to be the brain behind the gang which engaged in the trade of timber through fake companies and forged bills, swindling the state of crores of rupees in tax evasion.
So far, the investigators have unearthed an estimated GST theft of more than Rs.18 crore on a Rs.100-crore timber turnover.
The charge sheet, which took 58 days to prepare, contains inputs from the forensic study of over 200 bank accounts of bogus firms, messages and WhatsApp chats of more than 60 mobile phones, soft documents from 30 computers, and a large number of paper files and forged bills seized from the accused persons’ offices and residential premises.
“We have presented before the court the evidence of tax evasion worth Rs.20 crore through bogus sale of 113 crore timber to more than 28 firms that exist only on paper,” a senior official from the SIB said.
Read more at: Hindustan Times
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