DRI to celebrate 62nd Founding Day tomorrow

6th Regional Customs Enforcement Meeting (RCEM) to be held on the occasion

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) is celebrating its 62nd Founding Day on the 4th of December, 2019. The two-day event scheduled for 4th -5th December, 2019 will be inaugurated by the Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman along with the Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs Shri Anurag Singh Thakur.

For more than six decades, DRI with its presence across India and abroad has been carrying out its mandate of countering organised crime groups engaged in smuggling of contraband goods such as arms, ammunitions & explosives, narcotic drugs& psychotropic substances, gold & diamonds, counterfeit currency notes, wildlife items, hazardous & environmentally sensitive materials and antiques. DRI also has expertise in unearthing commercial frauds, plugging leakage of Government’s tax revenue and countering trade based money laundering and black money. DRI has also been at the forefront in international Customs collaboration and has Customs Mutual Assistance Agreements with over 60 other countries, where thrust is on information exchange and learning from the best practices of other Customs administrations.

Accordingly, DRI takes the opportunity of its founding day to also organise Regional Customs Enforcement Meeting for effectively engaging with partner Customs organisations and International agencies like World Customs Organisation, INTERPOL for enforcement related issues.

This year, 21 Customs administrations covering the Asia-Pacific region along with international organisations such as Interpol, UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Regional Intelligence Liaison Office – Asia Pacific (RILO AP) have been invited to the event. This meeting comes in the backdrop of the heightened trafficking of the huge quantities of heroin noticed in the Indian Ocean Region.

Customs enforcement cooperation strengthens cross-border intelligence exchange and operational coordination against organised smuggling. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence will host a Regional Customs Enforcement Meeting to engage partner customs administrations and international agencies on detection and disruption of organised smuggling, commercial frauds, tax-revenue leakage and trade-based money laundering. The event emphasises multilateral information exchange and operational coordination using Customs Mutual Assistance Agreements and collaboration with organisations such as INTERPOL and UNODC to strengthen regional responses to intensified narcotics trafficking.