Operation Check Shirts

02 Dec 2021 Operation Check Shirts

• Recently Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has caught 2 passengers with illegal foreign exchange worth Rs 3.7 crore at Mumbai International Airport.
• The highlight of this campaign has been that under Operation Check Shirts, using data analytics, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) obtained specific intelligence on two travellers intending to smuggle foreign exchange out of India.
• DRI officials intercepted these two passengers on the morning of 26 November 2021 at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai. He was about to visit Sharjah.  Foreign exchange worth Rs 3.7 crore in the form of US Dollars and Saudi Dirham has been found during the checking of their belongings.
• These smugglers hid the foreign currency in a cunningly designed space at the bottom of the carry-on luggage. The concealment method would have made it difficult to detect in a scan of ordinary baggage.
• The foreign exchange recovered from these passengers has been confiscated under section 110 of the Customs Act, 1962.
• Illegal export of foreign exchange is a means of illegal income by illegal and criminal activities, other than “smuggling” in the context of the Customs Act. In addition, it is also a serious threat to the national economy and national security.
• DRI maintains proactive vigilance and operational readiness to prevent smuggling of foreign exchange, gold, narcotics and other prohibited goods into and out of the country.
• This is the fourth such case of major forex seizure at an international airport in the last one and a half months.
• If we talk about the trade of counterfeit currency, then gangs promoting the trade of counterfeit currency inside the country have been active along the Indo-Nepal border, India-Pakistan border and India-Bangladesh border.
• But the government has taken several steps to prevent smuggling and circulation of counterfeit Indian currency notes in the country, such as deploying additional human resources for 24-hour surveillance using new surveillance technology, setting up surveillance posts along the international border, Security has been provided along the international borders by fencing and intensive patrolling.
• Second, the Fake Indian Currency Note Coordination Group (FCORD) has been created by the Ministry of Home Affairs to share intelligence information or information between the state and central security agencies to counter the problem of circulation of counterfeit currency notes in the country.
• Third, the Terror Funding and Fake Currency Cell ie TFFC has been constituted in the NIA to investigate terror financing and counterfeit currency cases.
• Fourth, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between India and Bangladesh to prevent and combat smuggling and circulation of counterfeit currency notes.
• Fifth, training programs are organized for police officers of Nepal and Bangladesh to make them aware about smuggling or counterfeiting or counter fitting of Indian currency.

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