Enforcement Directorate Probes Rs 730 Crore GST Fraud, Raids Eight Sites Across Three States

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday, August 7, 2025 led search investigations across West Bengal, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand in connection to a fake GST scam worth Rs 730 crore. 

These searches were being undertaken basis the “credible eveidence” that suggested involvment of multiple firms, and indiviuals in laundering “proceeds of crime”, as per media reports. 

 In an earlier development to this case, the law enforcement and economic intellegence agency had arrested Shiv Kumar alongside Amit Gupta, and Amit Agarwal, who were Kumar's associates in this case. 

The ED investigation revealed that the syndicate led by Shiv Kumar Devda and his associates had established a network of 135 fake firms. These entities only existed on paper and were being utilised to issue false invoices worth above Rs 5,000 crore without any actual supply of goods or services.

Meanwhile, Shiv Kumar Devda was chargesheeted last month following his arrest in May 2025, as per media reports. 

The ED had also led the first round of searches linked to this case during the aforementioned period. 

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Meanwhile, the Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary had informed the Parliament on August 4 that the Central GST field officers have detected tax evasion of about Rs 7.08 lakh crore in the last five years till 2024-25 fiscal, including input tax credit (ITC) fraud of about Rs 1.79 lakh crore.

In 2024-25 fiscal period, over Rs 2.23 lakh crore of GST evasion was detected by CGST field officers, the Minister said.

Of the 30,056 cases of GST evasion detected in FY'25, more than half or 15,283 cases were linked to ITC fraud, where the evasion totalled Rs 58,772 crore.