The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), in collaboration with an intelligence agency, has arrested four members of an inter-provincial gang who would make fake sales tax invoices, it came to light on Sunday.
The gang had made fake IDs on internet for the purpose, and had caused a loss of over Rs11 billion to the national exchequer. The FBR has arrested one member of the gang from Faisalabad against whom a criminal case was already registered. The man would file fake sales tax returns of various dummy firms.
The second suspect has been arrested from a call center in Islamabad. The broker or agent of the gang belongs to Karachi. Another gang member was also taken into custody from Faisalabad.
The man had been dismissed from service in 2014 after he was involved in corrupt practices. All the suspects, who were connected to each other on WhatsApp, would share false input/output tax data on Excel sheets.
They are now imprisoned in Central Jail in Karachi on a physical remand. On the other hand, Directorate of I & IIR has said that the bureau was committed to eradicating the scourge of fake invoices.
FBR tightens its noose around tax evaders, smugglers. On the other hand, the FBR has formed teams to crackdown on tax defaulters as well as smugglers.—INP
