Multi-crore mulberry silk scam: 2 more held

Ahmedabad: The Ahmedabad zonal unit of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Wednesday made two more arrests in the multi-crore duty evasion scam involving the import and export of mulberry silk. Gopal Natwarlal Jopat and Ravi Kumar Sharma were arrested on Wednesday and produced before additional chief metropolitan magistrate in Ahmedabad. Both have been sent to judicial custody.
Including these two, six arrests have been made in this case. Earlier this month, Tabib Ali Sayed and J B Jhala, superintendent of central excise, Dhrangadhra range, Surendranagar division were arrested for their involvement in this case.
The racket, which was being carried out from Dhrangadhra, was unearthed last month and two men - Jitendra Mistry and Kaumil Ranpura were arrested in this case.
According to DRI officials, the amount of duty evaded in the case has gone up to Rs 165 crore and is likely cross Rs 300 crore.
"During the course of the enquiry, the documents recovered included those pertaining to the fraudulently availed DFIA (Duty Free Import Authorization) Licences. The documents indicated that DFIA licences of Rs 38 crore were obtained fraudulently by the firm/company opened in the name of Gopal Jopat and of Rs 10 crores obtained by firms in the name of Ravi Sharma," said a DRI official.
Jopat is the proprietor of an Ahmedabad-based firm and a director in another firm.
Sharma is the proprietor of one firm and director in two other firms. Sharma and Jopat were part of the syndicate that ran this multi-crore racket.
According to DRI officials, they found that some merchant exporters were making deemed exports by supplying mulberry silk fabrics to a 100% Export Oriented Unit (EOU) Shree Keshri Exports based in Dhrangadhra on the basis of forged documents. On verification, DRI officials found that these merchant exporters existed only on papers and the forged documents were purportedly issued by the central excise office.
According to officials, Shree Keshri Exports obtained Duty Free Import Authorization (DFIA) licences worth more than Rs 100 crore. DRI filed a case of DFIA Fraud.
Jhala was instrumental in issuing DFIA licenses worth more than Rs 100 crore despite knowing that the EOU was not operational.