Revenue Intelligence asked to confirm truthfulness of US entity's unaccounted money report

A Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) on unaccounted (black) money has asked the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) to verify if $505 billion in unaccounted wealth had flown out of the country during 2004-13, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was in power.

The instruction to the DRI comes on the heels of US-based think tank Global Financial Integrity saying India had the fourth-largest outflow of unaccounted money in the world, with $51 billion flowing out every year between 2004 and 2013.

"The SIT obtained calculations of country-wise illicit financial flows for each of these years from Global Financial Integrity," the finance ministry said.

The details, it said, had been sent to DRI on February 8 (Monday), which has been asked to "verify the extent to which the calculations are correct".

The SIT said that as reports like those of Global Financial Integrity were widely used in academic circles and for debates, it was "crucial to find out the truthfulness of such reports".

Further necessary action would be taken by SIT after receiving the report from DRI, it added.

The finance ministry said SIT had in reports highlighted trade-based money laundering, a major source of illicit money flow out of the country. In its second report, SIT had said there should be a mechanism to examine mismatch between export-import data with corresponding data of other countries on a regular basis.

The SIT had also said that wherever possible, especially in case of commodities, there should be a system for cross-checking of prices of imports-exports with international prices.