FBR Busts Gang Involved in Fake Invoices Scam

Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) Inland Revenue (IR) Intelligence and Investigation Directorate, Karachi has busted an inter-province gang of fake/flying sales tax invoices and arrested four suspects involved in the scam causing a revenue loss of Rs. 11.6 billion to the national exchequer. In a criminal case registered in the Court of Special Judge Custom & Taxation Karachi, the IR Intelligence team arrested the first accused from Faisalabad who was filing fake sales tax returns of various dummy firms from his house. The second accused connected with the scam has been arrested from PRAL Call Centre, Islamabad who while working as a facilitation officer at PRAL was found involved in providing user ID/Password of inactive sales tax registered units to fake invoice mafia agents. The day when a team of I&I-IR, Karachi picked the PRAL official for investigation, officers recovered Rs. 1,600 million fake output tax data from his computer which he was supposed to supply to a person through FBR’s e-filing system (IRIS). Later, on his disclosure, another agent was also arrested near Islamabad. The fourth accused was taken into custody from Faisalabad, who was also an ex-employee of PRAL Faisalabad but was dismissed from service in 2014. He later became an advocate and is presently a member of District Bar, Faisalabad. All four accused, after investigation and completion of physical remand in I&I custody, are presently under judicial custody at Central Prison, Karachi. Sources close to the anti-fraud wing of Inland Revenue have confirmed that this is the first time that a whole gang has been smashed by the Directorate of I&I-IR, Karachi.