A financial fraud to the tune of about Rs 300 crore has been detected in Jharkhand by the Central Goods and Service Tax (CGST) department, it announced on Wednesday, releasing names of 19 dubious entities that have forged bills and invoices to illegally claim input tax credit (ITC).

In an official press statement issued in Wednesday, CGST explained that the input tax credit was then transferred to other companies to further claim tax benefits from the government.

“The GST scam worth Rs 300 crore on fake bills and invoices in Jharkhand was detected following thorough data analysis of 17 firms in the state based on tip-offs. During the investigation, it was found that out of these 17 firms, seven were shown as registered in one address and five other in another single address. It was also found that some of the firms had got themselves registered on the GST portal with a single phone number and e-mail id.

"In all,19 dubious firms have been detected so far,” said the press statement.

The press note added that investigations had revealed that some of the firms claiming to be registered in Jharkhand actually belonged to other states. “We are in the process of tracing their origin state to communicate with the GST department there for further action,” it read.

All the 19 dubious firms have been named by the GST department with the quantum of fraud. They are M/s T N M Enterprises (Rs 58.22 crore), M/s Singhania Construction (Rs 15.22 crore), M/s Shiv Shakti Enterprise (Rs 59.23 crore), M/s Vishal Traders (Rs 3.94 crore), M/s Dharam Enterprises (Rs 3.58 crore), M/s Radhe Traders (5.37 crore), M/s Mishra traders (Rs 3.64 crore), M/s Lakhvir Singh (Rs 1.70 crore), M/s Firoz Hussain (Rs 5.26 crore), M/s Krishna Traders (Rs 4.98 crore), M/s Om Enterprises (Rs 17.64 crore), M/s Ma Laxmi Enterprises (Rs 10.37 crore), M/s Ganesh Traders (Rs 8.53 crore), M/s Shivnath Kumar (Rs 1.77 crore), M/s Tarachand Enterprises (Rs 68.54 crore), M/s S D M Enterprises (Rs 6.25 crore) and M/s Vinayak Enterprises (Rs 5.76 crore).