LUCKNOW, Dec. 26 -- With the arrest of eight members, the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) has busted a major organised inter-state GST evasion gang that allegedly caused a revenue loss of over Rs.500 crore through fake firms, forged invoices and bogus e-way bills, officials said in a statement issued on Friday.

Officials said the racket was spread across several states, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar and Assam. In Uttar Pradesh, fake firms were registered in Meerut, Hapur, Ghaziabad, Noida, Kanpur, Lucknow, Varanasi and Agra. In Agra alone, a firm called Sharma Enterprises is accused of causing a GST loss of Rs.137 crore, they added....