ED filed over 5,400 money laundering cases in 17 years; got 23 convictions

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed more than 5,400 money laundering cases since the criminal law was enacted over 17 years ago and has secured conviction against just 23 persons, say reports

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed more than 5,400 money laundering cases since the criminal law was enacted over 17 years ago and it has secured conviction against just 23 persons till now, according to details provided by the government to Parliament on Monday.

The information was provided to Lok Sabha in a written reply by the minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary.

Till 31 March 2022, the minister said, the ED recorded 5,422 cases under the PMLA, attached proceeds of crime of Rs. 1,04,702 crore (approximately), and filed prosecution complaints (charge sheets) in 992 cases resulting in the confiscation of Rs 869.31 crore and conviction of 23 accused.

The PMLA, enacted in 2002, was implemented on July 1, 2005.

Separately, the minister said, that in the last 10 years, the ED registered the highest number of money laundering and foreign exchange violation cases during the 2021-22 financial year -- at 1,180 and 5,313 complaints respectively.

During the financial years between 2012-13 to 2021-22, the federal probe agency filed a total of 3,985 criminal complaints under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and 24,893 under the civil law of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

According to it, the ED registered 221 money laundering cases during the 2012-13 fiscal, 209 (2013-14), 178 (2014-15), 111 (2015-16), 200 (2016-17), 148 (2017-18), 195 (2018-19), 562 (2019-20), 981 (2020-21) and 1,180 cases (2021-22).

Similarly, the registration of FEMA cases stands at 1,722 (2012-13), 1,041 (2013-14), 915 (2014-15), 1,516 (2015-16), 1,993 (2016-17), 3,627 (2017-18), 2,659 (2018-19), 3,360 (2019-20), 2,747 (2020-21) and 5,313 (2021-22).

The FEMA was enacted in 1999 after repealing the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) of 1973.

Till March 31, 2002, Chaudhary said, the agency took up a total of 30,716 cases for investigation under FEMA and issued 8,109 show cause notices (after completion of the investigation), the minister said.

As many as 6,472 show cause notices were adjudicated under the FEMA, thereby imposing a penalty of around Rs 8,130 crore and assets of Rs 7,080 crore (approximately) were seized under FEMA, MoS Chaudhary said.