MEERUT, June 7 -- Pilibhit district police have arrested four members of an interstate racket allegedly involved in creating over 100 fake GST firms and facilitating large-scale tax evasion, nine months after a GST fraud case was registered at Madhotanda police station. Investigators say the gang had been operating for years causing losses worth crores of rupees to the government. Natasha Goyal, additional superintendent of police, Pilibhit, said the case originated in August last year when the assistant commissioner, state tax department, lodged a complaint against one Ramsaresh Rajbhar, a resident of Bundibhood village. The complaint alleged that Rajbhar, proprietor of RSR Traders, had fraudulently availed input tax credit by showing only paper transactions through a firm registered at his village address. A departmental inquiry found no evidence of genuine business activity related to the ready-made garments trade that the firm claimed to have been doing. Officials estimated that the fraudulent transactions caused a loss of more than Rs.3.61 crore to the government exchequer. Given the seriousness of the allegations, the investigation was transferred to the crime branch. During the probe, investigators uncovered the involvement of an organised gang operating out of Delhi. The inquiry identified four accused - Hari Om, Vipin Jain, Deepak Chaudhary and Bachchu, all residents of Swaroop Nagar in North-West Delhi. A joint team of the crime branch and Madhotanda police arrested the four accused on Friday. Another alleged gang member, Chandan Mishra, is already lodged in Mainpuri district jail in connection with another case. The arrested accused were produced before a court and subsequently sent to judicial custody. During interrogation, the accused revealed they lured people through online advertisements offering jobs, assistance in correcting electricity bills and other services. Using these pretexts, they collected Aadhaar and PAN cards, electricity bills, mobile numbers and other personal documents from unsuspecting individuals. After obtaining one-time passwords, the gang used the documents to register fake firms. Once registered, the shell firms were sold to interested parties for a fixed amount. These firms were then allegedly used to generate fictitious business transactions and claim fraudulent tax benefits, enabling large-scale GST evasion. Police recovered six mobile phones, nine SIM cards and several documents related to firm registration and operations from the accused. Police said efforts are underway to identify other members of the syndicate and trace the wider network across multiple states....