Punjab’s steel hub, Mandi Gobindgarh, is once again under scrutiny for alleged tax evasion and money laundering after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) unearthed a major fraud involving fake GST invoicing and cash withdrawals amounting to Rs 3,089.57 crore from Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) bank accounts.
An FIR has been registered at Jamalpur police station in Ludhiana against five businessmen from Mandi Gobindgarh and Fatehgarh Sahib districts.
The case was registered on the complaint of Suraj Kumar Yadav, Assistant Director, Enforcement Directorate, New Delhi.
The accused have been identified as Amit Kumar Goyal, Manish Kumar, Gaurav Aggarwal and Balwant Singh, all residents of Mandi Gobindgarh, and Gurdeep Singh of Amloh.
In his complaint to Ludhiana Police, Yadav said the Directorate was investigating suspicious transactions and suspected money laundering involving multiple entities allegedly controlled by the same group of individuals sharing common addresses, phone numbers and email IDs.
According to the complaint, these entities were allegedly created to layer high-value funds through fake GST invoicing and cash withdrawals totalling Rs 3,089.57 crore from APMC bank accounts maintained at various branches of IDFC First Bank, along with additional transactions routed through accounts in other banks.
The ED stated that during its investigation under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999, bank account statements of various linked entities were obtained and analysed to trace the movement of funds.
The analysis revealed that payments were received through RTGS transfers into the accounts of fake firms and were subsequently routed to APMC bank accounts operated by proprietorship concerns. The arrangement allegedly facilitated large-scale cash withdrawals while circumventing tax deduction at source (TDS) liabilities under Section 194N of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
The cash was withdrawn through 25 bank accounts maintained with various branches of IDFC First Bank.
As per the FIR, the Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI), Ludhiana Zonal Unit, had earlier investigated fraudulent transactions allegedly carried out by Amit Kumar Goyal and his brother and associate, Manish Kumar.
The DGGI found that Amit Kumar Goyal, Manish Kumar and Gaurav Aggarwal had allegedly created 27 fake or bogus firms. These shell entities were used to siphon off funds and generate fraudulent Input Tax Credit (ITC).
Investigators alleged that the network generated and passed on fraudulent ITC worth approximately Rs 108.49 crore against total billing of Rs 720.97 crore, causing wrongful losses to the government exchequer.
Search operations conducted by the DGGI in Ludhiana resulted in the seizure of 54 cheque books, 46 ATM cards, five voter identity cards, 11 PAN cards, seven stamps, multiple mobile phones, hard disks, laptops and loose documents linked to other firms and individuals.
According to investigators, the recovered material established that the two brothers were operating dummy firms in the names of other individuals by misusing their identification documents.
Both brothers were arrested by the DGGI on October 9, 2024, and were later granted regular bail on July 28, 2025.
According to the FIR, data extracted from mobile phones and digital devices, obtained from the DGGI, was analysed alongside KYC records collected from various banks.
The investigation found that Amit Kumar Goyal had allegedly created 27 fake firms. Two of them — N.R. Steels and Goyal Steel Industries — were registered using his own PAN number (AIBPG9505H), while the remaining 25 firms were allegedly established using KYC documents belonging to other individuals, many of whom were financially vulnerable.
Investigators also found that several entities shared the same registered email address and mobile number.
Further analysis of the digital devices belonging to Amit Kumar Goyal and Manish Kumar allegedly revealed KYC documents of multiple individuals used to create the firms, as well as invoices linked to those entities.
Officials noted that fraudulent billing rackets have operated in Mandi Gobindgarh for years. Several agencies, including GST authorities, CGST and other central agencies, have previously detected cases of GST evasion through shell companies in Punjab’s steel town.
The modus operandi
According to investigators, the racket operated through 27 bogus firms that issued fake invoices to generate fraudulent ITC.
Payments received through RTGS transfers in the accounts of these firms were then routed to APMC bank accounts, from where cash withdrawals were made. The use of APMC accounts allegedly helped avoid withdrawal limits and TDS compliance requirements.
The withdrawn cash was subsequently returned to the beneficiary firms after deducting a commission, investigators said.
