By Venkatesh Raghavan
The massive raids at the Kanpur based businessman that lasted for more than 40 hours yielded cash worth INR 257 crores, 250 kgs of silver besides 25 kg of gold among other articles that include a bunch of 300 keys
The recent arrest and remand of Piyush Jain, owner of a massive perfume business, besides sale of tobacco and its accessories in Kanpur was a classical case of one thing leading to the other when the nodal team from the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) pounced on four trucks loaded with pan masala and tobacco.
The DGGI team traced the trucks to the Shikar Pan Masala factory. The raid on the factory threw up the name of another company, reportedly Odocam Industries that acted as its partner. This in turn led to the arrest of Jain. The nodal agency was able to recover 200 fake invoices from the investigation site.
Locals informed that Jain’s clients included purchasers of tobacco, soap, perfumes and allied products and was supported from a research laboratory housed in his office premises. Besides Kanpur, Jain had offices in Kannauj and Mumbai. The charges slapped against him by the DGGI team were on grounds of tax evasion.
The massive raids that lasted for more than 40 hours yielded cash worth INR 257 crores, 250 kgs of silver besides 25 kg of gold among other articles that include a bunch of 300 keys. Piyush who boasts of a post graduate degree in chemistry, began his career in Mumbai as a salesman and later on graduated to producing and selling an array of products ranging from soaps, detergents, perfumes, tobacco and gutkha. Jain’s father, it was reported to be in the garment business.
As of now, his business links span a gamut of 50 countries, including the imports of raw materials his firm engages in from Iran, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Kuwait, Indonesia, Nepal, China, and United Arab Emirates. The nodal agency reported that tax evasion resulted owing to goods dispatched against fake invoices in the absence of any e-way bills through means of a goods transporter.
Interestingly, the seizure has put the political climate in the state of Uttar Pradesh in a boil, with both the ruling BJP and opposition Samajwadi Party trading charges against each other about reception of funds from this massive repository. Section 132 A of the CGST has been invoked and Jain has been remanded to 14 days of jail custody. The seizure also included incriminating documents that indicated possession of expensive properties across the cities of Kanpur, Kannauj, Mumbai and New Delhi.
Currently, the intelligence reports state that Jain is operating through a host of more than 40 shell companies, of which two are located in West Asia. The arrest that took place on December 27 was compounded by a two-day long search and seizure operation. As of now, Jain is stated to be having booming trading houses both in Mumbai and Gujarat. It was also reported that Jain put to good use his laboratory with his knowledge of chemistry and produced expensive compounds that used to be sold in the overseas markets.
Jain’s Kanpur office that was the prime target of the seizures is located in Ittarwali Galli. The purchase documents uncovered from his office indicated that he had been importing goods from Tehran. More details were awaited about the total scale of the contraband at the time of going to press.
