Chartered Accountant Arrested In Mumbai For Helping Corporation Pull Off Rs 128 Crore Export Fraud

A Chartered Accountant (CA) was arrested in Mumbai last week on charges of aiding a businessman in an export fraud worth Rs 128 crore, Tax Scan has reported.

The arrest was part of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI)‘s prevention of smuggling and customs fraud unit’s investigation into the matter.

This arrest comes after the joint managing director of RMCL Abhishek Agarwal was arrested from Daman in June for defrauding the exchequer by taking government import benefits worth crores via eight EPCG licenses but later failing to fulfil the export obligations.

As per reports, the company had till date fulfilled export obligations worth Rs 17 crore while Rs 128 crore worth of export commitment remained pending even after the expiry of the export obligation period.

Now in further action, the company’s consulting Chartered Accountant has been arrested for submitting fraudulent export obligation discharge certificate (EODC) certificate in exchange of a Rs 9 crore payment.

While the EODC certificate claimed the company had complied with the obligation, the DRI later found out that that an amount of Rs 128 crore was actually a “ghost export”, not recorded with the customs department. RMCL was later asked to furnish the required certificates within 10 days, but failed to do so.

During his interrogation, Agarwal claimed that his CA claimed that he would be able to close the matter and procure the EODC using a third party exporter.