New Delhi, Aug. 18 -- The Income-Tax Department on Tuesday launched a nationwide exercise targeting suspicious foreign remittances made by unscrupulous elements and shell entities in the last three years, which covers approximately 394 entities, including 117 entities located in India's land-border states, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said.

Based on ground intelligence and analysis of data on outward foreign remittances, the Income-Tax Department identified several suspicious entities that remitted large amounts of foreign exchange over the last three years, it said in a statement.

"A nationwide network of entities engaged in remitting funds abroad was uncovered during a search operation conducted on a group of fictitious ch...