120 persons convicted under PMLA in last 11 years; Govt in Parliament

NEw new delhi: 1 century and 20 individuals feature been convicted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) since the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, according to the data shared by the Centre in Parliament on Monday.The Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered 6,312 PMLA cases in these 11 years. Maximum number of accused persons - 38 - were convicted by courts last financial year only (FY-2024-25), the data, shared by Union minister of state for finance, Pankaj Chaudhary, in the Lok Sabha, stated.While the statistics shared by Chaudhary suggests the number of people convicted is too low, the federal financial crimes probe agency officials who didn’t want to be named claimed that its conviction rate is around 94%, as trial has finished in only 55 cases in courts, out of which conviction has been achieved in 52 cases (120 individuals).The agency has taken this stand earlier as well on more than one occasion. It had not achieved any convictions before 2014.Between June 1, 2014 and October 31, 2025, Chaudhary said in his reply, ED registered 6,312 cases under PMLA, in which 1,805 prosecution complaints (charge sheets) and 568 supplementary charge sheets were filed. The agency registered most cases - 333 - in 2024-25; which is when it achieved conviction of maximum - 38 - individuals.In the same reply, Chaudhary said after the amendment of PMLA on August 1, 2019, which allowed ED to file closure reports in its cases before the special courts, the agency has closed 93 probes.“After the amendment of PMLA, a closure report is required to be filed by ED before the special court, PMLA, in cases where no offence of money-laundering is made out. Since then, ED has filed closure report in 93 cases where no offence of money-laundering is made out due to various reasons such as closure of schedule offence case, cases where the court finds no offence committed related to schedule offence defined under PMLA, quashing of predicate offence case etc,” the MoS said.Prior to the amendment, cases where no money-laundering offence was made out were closed with the prior approval of the regional special director of ED.“As such, since the inception of PMLA (i.e. July 1, 2005 up to July 31, 2019, 1,185 cases were closed,” he added.As reported by HT in October, ED has lately realigned its strategy by focusing more on its core work - attaching the proceeds of crime so that the offenders cannot enjoy them.In that direction, the federal financial crimes probe agency has attached properties worth record ₹30,000 crore in FY2024-25 and has already touched ₹15,000 crore figure in the first five months (April-August) of FY2025-26. Officials said the numbers could go even higher this year.Overall, assets worth a whopping ₹1.70 lakh crore have been attached by ED since 2005 till date under PMLA in 8,100 cases.