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PMLA
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested 374 people, including directors of corporate firms, in the last five years under the anti-money laundering law, the government informed Parliament on Monday. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, said that in major cases of "corporate fraud" like those against the Sterling Biotech group, a Vadodara-based company promoted by the Sandesara brothers, Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, the ED has attached properties worth Rs 33,862.20 crore. The ED is a federal probe agency entrusted to implement the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). "Out of these, assets worth Rs 15,113.02 crore have been confiscated and restituted to the public sector banks." "Further, the consortium of banks led by SBI has realised Rs 7,975.27 crore by sale of assets handed over to them by the Directorate of Enforcement," the minister stated. He was responding to a questio
The government has amended rules under the anti-money law, making it mandatory for banks and financial institutions to record financial transactions of politically exposed persons (PEP). Also, financial institutions or reporting agencies will be required to collect information about the financial transactions of non-profit organisations or NGOs under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Under the modified PML Rules, the Finance Ministry defined PEPs as "individuals who have been entrusted with prominent public functions by a foreign country, including the heads of States or Governments, senior politicians, senior government or judicial or military officers, senior executives of state-owned corporations and important political party officials". The financial institutions will also have to register details of their NGO clients on the Darpan portal of the Niti Aayog and maintain the record for five years after the business relationship between a client and a
The Finance Ministry has tightened the definition of beneficial owners under the anti-money laundering law, mandating reporting entities like banks and crypto platforms to collect information from their clients. As per the amendments to the Prevention of Money Laundering Rules, any individual or group holding 10 per cent ownership in the client of a 'reporting entity' will now be considered a beneficial owner as against the ownership threshold of 25 per cent applicable earlier. The amended rules were notified on March 7 by the Finance Ministry. Under the anti-money laundering law, 'reporting entities' are banks and financial institutions, firms engaged in real estate and jewellery sectors. They also include intermediaries in casinos and crypto or virtual digital assets. So far, these entities were required to maintain KYC details or records of documents evidencing the identity of their clients as well as account files and business correspondence relating to clients. They are requir