ED attaches properties worth about Rs. 12,000 crore
What's the story
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), which enforces the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), has provisionally attached properties worth Rs. 11,032.27 crore in the last 15 months which are believed to be the proceeds of laundered money. This amount is more than what the ED had attached in a decade from 2005 to 2015. This massive increase in attachments was fuelled by several factors.
Data
The ED's seizure of assets in numbers
From 2005-2015, the total value of assets attached by the ED was Rs. 9003.26 crore. In the first three months of the current financial year, the ED provisionally attached Rs. 965.84 crore worth of properties, bringing its cumulative total up to about Rs. 22,000 crore.
Vijay Mallya case
Vijay Mallya case provided a significant boost to provisional attachments
The Rs. 11,032.27 crore worth of properties were attached by the ED after it issued 175 Provisional Attachment Orders (PAO). This massive figure was also aided by the Vijay Mallya case in which properties close to Rs. 10,000 crore were attached. Under the PMLA, the accused or the suspected now have to prove that these properties were purchased from legitimate sources.
Shell companies
The ED's crackdown on shell companies
Furthermore, this spike in provisional attachments is also the result of a crackdown on shell companies through which crores of rupees are transferred out of India. As of July 2017, the Registrar of Companies struck out the names of 1.62 lakh shell companies, of which 32% were from the southern Indian states.
ED activity
The ED has become more proactive of late
Interestingly, along with the provisional attachments, there has also been a spike in the ED's activities. According to statistics, over half of the total searches and over one third of the total arrests carried out by the ED happened over the last 15 months. Sources say that these activities were carried out in coordination with the CBI and the Income Tax Investigation Wing.