NEW DELHI: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog on terror financing and money laundering, has praised India’s asset recovery framework and lauded the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as a “model agency” for its effectiveness in tracing, confiscating, and restituting criminal proceeds.
In its latest report, Asset Recovery Guidance and Best Practices, the Paris-based FATF highlighted India’s success in recovering illicit assets and returning them to victims, noting that the country has enacted strong laws to confiscate properties belonging to fugitives. The FATF described the ED, led by senior IRS officer Rahul Navin, as a “model agency” for its efficiency and coordination in tracing and confiscating criminal proceeds.
The report also outlines how countries can strengthen their systems to trace, freeze, manage, and return proceeds of crime. It states that India has played a prominent role in the development of both the revised FATF standards and the new guidance document, having been actively engaged in FATF’s discussions and technical work over the past two years.
According to the FATF, officers from the ED were part of the project teams that drafted the revised recommendations and guidance, and they participated extensively in the working group and plenary meetings where these were negotiated.
Quoting the FATF report, the ED said in a statement: “The report outlines practical measures for policymakers and practitioners to identify, trace, freeze, manage, confiscate, and return assets derived from criminal activity. The guidance serves as a benchmark for countries to enhance their national frameworks and align with emerging best practices.”
Drawing from India’s legal and operational experience under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, the FATF report said the ED’s contributions shaped key aspects of the guidance, including value-based confiscation, provisional attachment, and inter-agency cooperation.
The report also cited several ED-led money laundering probes that resulted in the recovery and return of assets to victims. These include the alleged Rose Valley Ponzi scheme, a US drug trafficking case where Bitcoins worth Rs 130 crore were seized, and an alleged investment fraud in which the ED and Andhra Pradesh CID restored assets worth Rs 6,000 crore to victims.
The report also cited an alleged fraud and diversion of public funds in a Maharashtra-based cooperative bank, where the ED restored benami assets worth Rs 290 crore to compensate victims after auctioning the properties. The report noted that the confiscated properties “have been identified as a site for construction of a new airport, to build infrastructure in India for the benefit of society at large.”
“The contribution of India and the ED to this global effort has been substantial and widely acknowledged,” the report concluded.
