DRI detects commercial frauds worth over Rs 1,200 cr

Commercial frauds like mis-declaration of imported and exported goods and under-valuation, valued at Rs 1,200 crore, have been claimed to have detected by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.
The DRI, which gives valuable inputs to enforcement agencies to check smuggling, has detected 474 cases of such commercial frauds worth about Rs 1,236 crore during January and November last year, official sources said.
Of the total cases, a highest of 82 involving Rs 62.47 crore were related to under-valuation and 48 cases involving Rs 173.36 crore were of mis-declaration of goods and services being exported and imported, they said.
Besides 17 cases involving about Rs 513.34 crore detected by DRI were through misuse of various centre-run schemes-- 10 by misuse of duty drawback scheme having implications of Rs 12.11 crore and 17 related to misuse of end-use and other notifications involving Rs 501.23 crore, they said.

The financial intelligence agency has detected about 310 commercial fraud cases, involving about Rs 405 crore, during the period, the sources said.
During 2012-13, the DRI has detected 709 cases involving Rs 4,742.66 crore. Whereas, 527 commercial fraud cases having implications of Rs 1,841.50 crore were detected by the agency in 2011-12.

These cases were part of various attempts being made by miscreants through Trade Based Money laundering (TBML). TBML is the process of transferring or moving money through trade transactions, the sources said.
In practice, this can be achieved through misrepresentation of price, quantity or quality of imports or exports.

According to a Finance Ministry report on black money, the international trade system is subject to a wide range of risks and vulnerabilities, which provide unscrupulous entities the opportunity to launder money.
"A common technique used to circumvent currency restrictions is to 'over-invoice' imports or 'under-invoice' exports. The primary method used is the falsification of import and export invoices," the report said.
Misuse of export promotion schemes such as drawback, Duty Entitlement Pass Book , Duty Free Import Authorisation, Vishesh Krishi Gram Upaj Yojana, also lead to generation and flow of black money, it has said.
"Several cases of forgery of export promotion scheme scrips or licences, meant to claim duty exemption in imports have been detected, which highlight another aspect of black money generation and movement," the report has said.