The Jharkhand-Bengal Fake GST Invoice Racket
A network of roughly 135 shell companies across Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Delhi allegedly generated fake invoices to claim GST input tax credit without any real business behind them, draining the exchequer of hundreds of crores.
The Promise
“Input tax credit under the Goods and Services Tax will be claimed only against genuine underlying supplies of goods or services.”
— GST Input Tax Credit framework, administered by central and state tax authorities, Revenue-protection safeguard within India's GST system · 1 September 2025
Investigators allege a network of shell companies with no real business activity issued fake invoices purely to generate transferable input tax credit, which was then monetised or passed down supply chains.
The Standard
GST input tax credit claimed strictly against real, verifiable supplies of goods or services, with shell-company networks unable to fabricate paper trails at scale.
GST Act provisions on input tax credit and invoice-matching, enforced by the Enforcement Directorate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act where laundering is alleged.
In force from 1 September 2025
The Reality
The Enforcement Directorate raided over 28 locations across Ranchi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Jamshedpur in a probe into an alleged ₹750-crore GST scam linked to individuals including Gyanchandra Jaiswal alias Bablu Jaiswal, Vicky Bhalotia of Jamshedpur, Kolkata businessman Shiv Kumar Deora, and Amit Gupta and Sumit Gupta. The agency alleges the accused operated a network of around 135 shell companies across Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Delhi to generate fake invoices and claim input tax credit without conducting any actual business. In a related or overlapping strand of the same broader investigation, the ED has separately searched sites in Kolkata, Ranchi, and Jamshedpur in connection with a fake GST invoice probe reportedly valued at ₹14,325 crore, and has provisionally attached properties worth over ₹15 crore belonging to Amit Gupta and associates in Kolkata and Howrah.
As of 30 September 2025
The Gap
Bars share a single zero-based scale. No axis truncation is used to exaggerate or minimize the gap between the two figures.
Money
₹750 crore is the headline figure for the core case; a related ED probe cites fake invoices worth ₹14,325 crore. Properties worth over ₹15 crore have been provisionally attached.
Timeline
- StatusED raids over 28 locations
Simultaneous searches are conducted across Ranchi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Jamshedpur in the ₹750 crore GST scam probe.
- StatusProperties attached
The ED provisionally attaches immovable properties worth ₹15.41 crore belonging to Amit Gupta and associates in Kolkata and Howrah.
- StatusRelated ₹14,325 crore probe surfaces
The ED searches nine sites in Kolkata, Ranchi, and Jamshedpur in connection with a larger fake GST invoice probe.
Legal Status
This is a stub entry. Multiple individuals have been named and arrested by the ED across related raids; this investigation has not confirmed a chargesheet or trial outcome.
Named in ED raids linked to the ₹750 crore GST scam probe; no trial outcome confirmed.
Had properties worth over ₹15 crore provisionally attached by the ED; no trial outcome confirmed.
Verdict
Preliminary verdict, pending fuller research: the ED has documented a substantial shell-company network used to fabricate GST paper trails across three states, but this investigation could not establish the full scale of the fraud or its resolution.
This entry draws on several independent reports of ED raids and attachments from September and October 2025 but has not obtained primary tax-department or court filings, nor reconciled the differing scale figures reported across what may be related investigations.
What remains incomplete
- This is a stub entry; deeper research is pending on whether the ₹750 crore and ₹14,325 crore figures refer to the same or different shell-company networks.
- The exact number of individuals arrested and the current stage of any prosecution have not been confirmed.
- The revenue impact on the exchequer, as distinct from the gross value of fake invoices, has not been separately quantified.
Sources
Related investigations
The Amrapali Group Homebuyers Fraud
Amrapali Group took money from over 40,000 homebuyers for Noida and Greater Noida flats, then diverted thousands of crores of that money into unrelated ventures while construction stalled for years. The Supreme Court eventually cancelled the group's RERA registration and handed its projects to state-run NBCC to finish.
The Jaypee Infratech Insolvency and Homebuyers Case
Jaypee Infratech sold flats to over 20,000 homebuyers along the Yamuna Expressway, then defaulted on bank loans and entered insolvency in 2017. It took nearly seven years, a Supreme Court intervention, and two competing bidding rounds before the Suraksha Group finally took over the company in 2024 — with many buyers still waiting more than 15 years for possession.
The Unitech Group Homebuyers Fraud
Unitech collected over Rs 14,000 crore from nearly 30,000 homebuyers for flats it never finished, while a Supreme Court-ordered audit found its promoters had diverted thousands of crores abroad. The Chandra brothers spent years in jail, the government took over the company's board, and thousands of buyers are still waiting for their homes.