Thirteen additional individuals have been apprehended by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) in Bhavnagar for exploiting Aadhaar data belonging to innocent individuals. They were involved in using this data for Goods and Services Tax Registration and subsequently engaging in fraudulent invoicing activities.
The most recent operation was conducted under the leadership of Gautam Parmar, the Inspector General of Police for the Bhavnagar range, who also heads the Special Investigation Team (SIT).
Back in March 2023, the Gujarat State Goods and Services Tax (GSGST) reported that 3 people were involved in the fake billing of Goods and Services Tax (GST). A total of 2,725 Aadhaar cards and their associated cellphone numbers were found to have been tampered with following searches at 25 Aadhaar facilitation centres.
Also read: Aadhaar Scam in Gujarat: 1500 cards used Illegally to create Fake GST numbers
The Bhavnagar Police detained three people for deceiving Aadhaar card holders into visiting centres where the mobile number associated with their Aadhaar identity will be altered. The FIR stated that “People were called to the Aadhaar centre at the Bank of Baroda branch near Virani Circle in Bhavnagar and to the Common Services Centre near Chavdi Road in Bhavnagar. After their Aadhaar data was tampered with, their IDs were used to obtain bogus GST registrations.”
The recent capture of these 13 individuals is a fresh inclusion to the list of scam perpetrators.
The 48th GST Council proposed to conduct a pilot in the State of Gujarat for Biometric-based Aadhaar authentication and risk-based physical verification of registration applicants, also reported by Taxscan.
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