About Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI):
- DRI was constituted in 1957 as the apex anti-smuggling intelligence and investigation agency.
- It works under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC), Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
- DRI enforces the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962, and over fifty other allied acts, including the Arms Act, NDPS Act, COFEPOSA (Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities), Wildlife Act, Antiquities Act,
- It is tasked with detecting and curbing smuggling of contraband, including drug trafficking and illicit international trade in wildlife and environmentally sensitive items, as well as combating commercial frauds related to international trade and evasion of customs duty.
- It has a country-wide network of zonal, regional, and sub-regional units and intelligence cells.
- DRI collects, analyzes, and disseminates intelligence to the field formations, helps in investigations, and keeps statistics of seizures and prices/rates, etc, for watching trends of smuggling and movement of other contraband and suggest remedies for fixing loopholes in existing laws and procedures.
- The DRI has also been designated as the lead agency for S-CORD, the national anti-smuggling coordination centre.
- DRI has also been at the forefront in international Customs collaboration through Customs Mutual Assistance Agreements of CBIC with over 60 other countries, where the thrust is on information exchange and learning from the best practices of other Customs administrations.
