Mumbai Crime: Three IRS officers busted for Rs 6.5 crore fraud

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A case has been registered by the CBI against three Indian Revenue Services officers from the Customs department in connection to a case of a fraudulent claim of export incentives of Rs 6.5 crore. Deputy commissioners Kunal Anuj, Sharad Ranjan and Kamleshwar Singh allegedly created fictitious bank accounts to fraudulently divert duty drawback incentive into the accounts, the CBI stated. This duty drawback compensates exporters for duties paid on inputs used to manufacture exported products. The trio was posted in the drawback section of the Customs office at Nhava Sheva.

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The three IRS officers were posted at Nhava Sheva in the Customs office at different times between 2017 to 2018 when they committed the crime. The accused Kamleshwar Singh fraudulently disbursed Rs 2 crore between March and September 2017, whereas Sharad Ranjan defrauded Rs 3.5 crore during his tenure in September 2017 to March 2018 and Kunal Anuj was posted there only for a month in March 2018, when he defrauded Rs 1 crore. Singh and Ranjan have since retired. The three accused, among other private persons, have been booked for forgery, cheating, fraud and also under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

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According to the Times of India, the scam was unearthed by the DRI which perpetrated at JNPT in April 2018. It was found that the officers connived with private players to dupe off government funds, officials stated. The three officers misused their authority and lifted alerts on suspicious exporters who had been kept on hold due to investigations against them. According to the FIR, the alerts were placed on some exporters for holding back drawback amount on suspicious exports since 2010. The accounts created by them were fraudulently registered in the Electronic Data Interchange system of the Customs. The officers lifted alerts and issued directives to banks to disburse drawback amounts in the accounts, the FIR added. "Later, the amounts were withdrawn and misappropriated." According to the FIR, the trio again placed the alerts. The private persons included in the scam are businessmen Ramesh Saingh, Sadruddin Lassanwala, Rajumar Suryanath, Arjun Goregaonkar Ashuthosh Singh, and agent Shaikh Arife.

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