The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) on Sunday suspended the licence of 56 customs brokers after they were found to be associated with fraudulent exporters.
The action, CBIC said, came after the Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM) carried out data analytics of customs brokers linked with fraudulent or unscrupulous exporters. The directorate’s findings resulted in the suspension of licences of 56 customs brokers, including those of 37 from Delhi, since August 2019 till date.
The exercise found that as many as 62 customs brokers had handled more than 15,290 export consignments of 1,431 untraceable exporters, CBIC said in a statement. One of the brokers was found to have handled exports of 99 untraceable exporters who claimed ₹121.79 crore of Integrated Goods and Services (IGST) refund, it added.
“These customs brokers’ activities were under strong suspicion for quite some time and the officials were able to block IGST refund of ₹226 crore in these cases so far,” CBIC said.
Customs brokers are governed by Section 146 of the Customs Act, 1962, and the Customs Broker Licensing Regulations (CBLR), 2018. They are under legal obligation as per Regulation 10 of CBLR to verify the correctness of IEC, GSTIN, and identity of their client and functioning of their client at the declared address by using reliable, independent, authentic documents, data or information.
Following the violation of this norm in case of the 1,431 non-traceable exporters by the customs brokers, their licences were suspended. While the 56 out of 62 suspended customs brokers won’t be able to carry out any business transactions, the rest are being probed.
{{/usCountry}}Following the violation of this norm in case of the 1,431 non-traceable exporters by the customs brokers, their licences were suspended. While the 56 out of 62 suspended customs brokers won’t be able to carry out any business transactions, the rest are being probed.
{{/usCountry}}“An alert for 100 per cent examination of all import consignments have been inserted considering the likelihood of malpractice in imports as well by the doubtful Customs Brokers,” the statement added.
There were 7,516 exporters in the ‘risky exporter’ list of CBIC till mid July, according to news agency PTI.