LUCKNOW, Dec. 28 -- 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, and Assam. In UP, 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. STF investigations revealed that the gang created shell companies using forged documents and generated fraudulent sales invoices and e-way bills without any actual movement of goods or services. The accused allegedly had access to login IDs, passwords and OTPs of multiple firms' bank accounts, enabling them to manipulate transactions. These fake documents were uploaded on the GST portal to illegally pass on input tax credit benefits to genuine firms. Initial scrutiny of bank transactions and digital evidence suggests GST evasion exceeding Rs.500 crore....