The Prakasam police busted a fake electronic bill racket with arrest of six people in connection with two cases in Martur and Chimakurthy on Wednesday, a police official said.
Superintendent of Police Ch Srikant, told at a press conference the offenders had created fake bills of the Commercial Taxes Department and helped dealers to transport goods without payment of commercial taxes to the government.
In the first case, a Commercial Taxes Department employee stole 2,000 passwords of companies and generated fake e-way bills for transport of granite slabs from the Martur region.
Ramakant, a senior assistant at the Commercial Taxes Department in Chilakaluripet of Guntur district was nabbed along with his associates for helping Rajasthan-based traders evade tax of Rs 1.35 crore.
In another case, a person from Secundrabad generated passwords by visiting the Commercial Tax Department's website and evaded Rs 40 lakh in tax.
Superintendent of Police Ch Srikanth said that the accused used loopholes in the system from April 2014 onwards and caused a loss of Rs 500 crore to the Andhra Pradesh Commercial Tax Department.
He said that the new e-billing system introduced by the AP government in 2014 has no checks due to which anybody could login to the commercial taxes department's website and obtain e-bills.
The fraud was unearthed after a complaint lodged by Arjun Granites in Budawada from Chimakurthy mandal.
Arjun Granites obtained permission from the Commercial Tax Department in January 2015. Though the company did not start operations, it received notices from the Commercial Tax Department.
