ED attaches 33 bank accounts of Popular Front of India & Rehab India Foundation in money laundering case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached 23 bank accounts of PFI having collective balance of Rs. 59,12,051 and 10 bank accounts of PFI’s front organization Rehab India Foundation (RIF) having collective balance of Rs. 9,50,030 in the ongoing money laundering investigation against Popular Front of India (PFI) & its related organizations. A total amount of Rs. 68,62,081 has thus been provisionally attached under Section 5 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

PFI and RFI got a large sum of money, including cash, from suspicious sources, according to an inquiry by the ED. Since 2009, more than Rs. 60 crore has been deposited in PFI’s accounts, including more than Rs. 30 crore in cash deposits. Since 2010, roughly Rs. 58 crore has been put in RIF’s accounts.

Furthermore, the ED investigation indicated that PFI, in active coordination with other linked accused persons, engaged in proceeds of crime laundering in violation of Section 3 of the PMLA, 2002. Monetary proceeds of crime have been deposited in the organization’s bank accounts under the guise of cash donations from sympathisers / members. Similarly, proceeds of crime were mobilised in the form of cash and deposited by PFI leaders in the bank accounts of various individuals in order to destroy the fund trail and avoid regulatory rigour, and these funds were instantly moved from bank accounts to PFI’s bank account.

PFI was also found to be secretly mobilising funds through a well-organized network in Gulf countries as part of a criminal conspiracy, and these proceeds of crime were secretly and clandestinely sent to India through underground & illegal channels and by way of foreign remittances into the bank accounts of sympathisers / office bearers / members and their relatives / associates in India, and then these funds were transferred to the bank accounts of PFI, RIF. The proceeds of crime have thus been put, stacked, and integrated in the bank accounts of PFI and RIF, and so projected as untainted money. This is part of a larger criminal conspiracy involving PFI and its related entities to raise funds in the country and abroad to carry out various unlawful activities, which has resulted in the filing of numerous FIRs / complaints against them for the commission of scheduled offences over time, as well as the filing of chargesheets and convictions of its members / office-bearers.

ED has already filed a Prosecution Complaint on 06.02.2021 and a Supplementary Prosecution Complaint on 06.05.2022 before the Hon’ble Special PMLA Court in Lucknow against members / office-bearers of PFI and Campus Front of India. All of the accused defendants have been charged with money laundering by the Honourable Court.