In the biggest joint operation by Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) and Directorate General of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) against exporters who were claiming a refund of IGST fraudulently, pan-India searches were carried out at 336 different locations across the country on September 11. The operation covered entities in the states of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh. The joint operation of the two premier intelligence agencies of Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), was a first of its kind in the history of CBIC which involved about 1200 officers from both the agencies.

On the basis of data analytics, an intelligence developed in close coordination by both the agencies revealed that some exporters were exporting goods out of India on payment of tax (IGST), being done almost entirely out of the Input Tax Credit (ITC) availed on the basis of ineligible/ fake supplies. Further, such IGST payment was claimed as a refund on export. Based on the data provided by the Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM), an analysis was conducted wherein certain ‘red flag’ indicator filters were applied to Customs’ export data in conjunction with the corresponding GST data of the exporters.