Pune, Sep 18 (IANS): In a breakthrough after five months of probe, the Directorate-General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) Pune Zonal Unit has secured the custody of the absconding second master-mind in the Rs 167 crore GST scam, senior official sources revealed on Wednesday.

The accused, identified as Virendra H. Kumar, 26, was nabbed in Barmer district of Rajasthan on September 13 and finally brought to Pune to face the laws here.

“He was produced before a local court and granted police custody till September 27 and lodged in the Yerawada Central Jail. Further investigations are underway,” the officials said.

The sources said that he was among the two most wanted scamsters in the fraud unearthed by the DGGI PZU in May in which one was arrested from Jaipur in May 2024, and now both are in the agency's custody.

As the DGGI sleuths were hot on his trail, Kumar was constantly on the move, changing his identity and contact details repeatedly to avoid detection, but after deploying tech intel and a Bollywood-style chase, they zeroed in and swooped on him in Barmer.

Kumar and his associate Rahul Kumar are involved in creating a syndicate of more than 50 bogus firms using fake/morphed/amended documents to carry out the massive GST fraud that was detected after extensive data analyses and surveillance of a few fake firms identified in Pune and Goa.

Without an actual supply of goods or services, they passed Input Tax Credit (ITC) and their tentacles spread in Maharashtra, Delhi, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka and Rajasthan.

The DGGI PZU sleuths probed the CDRs, CAFs, and pattern of filing returns and analysed bank accounts to conclude that the syndicate, operating from different cities/states in the country, was creating bogus firms using aliases or fake identities using forged legal documents and even by-passing the unique biometric requirements for issuing SIM cards.

They also uncovered their unique modus operandi whereby they created multiple fake identities of purported proprietors/authorised signatories, using SIM cards based on forged Aadhar cards to have full control of filing the GST registrations, returns, payments, cancellations, getting OTPs, etc at any time as per their convenience.

“We are questioning the accused to help unravel more fake firms that could have been created for committing the frauds, involvement of other associates in this huge racket, mapping the end beneficiaries, tracing the proceeds of the crime and recovering it for the government exchequer,” the sources said.