KOCHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) are collecting more details about the directors of Munnar Villa Vista Project (MVVP), a company allegedly floated by PFI leaders to launder money from abroad.
The ED probe into PFI’s fund flow gathered momentum and culminated in the raids in Kerala after the investigation agency found out the role of Abdul Razaq Peediyakkal alias Abdul Razak B P, who along with other PFI leaders in floating MVVP.
Investigation reveals that unaccounted and unexplained cash and foreign funds parked in MVVP, allegedly for funding radical activities. The ED revealed the MVVP’s role in money laundering in a supplementary prosecution complaint filed against the PFI leaders under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) before the Special PMLA Court in Lucknow in May 2022.
“We have identified the other directors of the company, and a probe is on to track the details of other firms in which these people have stakes,” said an ED officer. As per the Registrar of Companies, Munnar Villa Vista Private Limited was registered on February 13, 2018, at RoC, Ernakulam in the address - Door No 377/U, Viripara, Mankulam, Idukki. The company has an authorised share capital and paid-up capital of Rs 2 crore each. The last audited balance sheet was filed on March 31, 2021.
The supplementary chargesheet alleged Abdul Razak as a longtime dedicated member of PFI, who was actively involved and instrumental in the fundraising activities of the organisation in India and abroad.
He used to transfer funds from the UAE to Rehab India Foundation (RIF), a PFI-frontal organisation that was involved in transferring around `19 crore to India through illegal channels.
Apart from Abdul Razak, the ED also tracked the details of Ashraf M K, PFI’s state executive council member, who was previously the president of the organisation’s Ernakulam district committee. The ED said Ashraf, originally arraigned by the NIA as an accused in the infamous palm chopping case of 2010, was the owner of Darbar Restaurant in Abu Dhabi which served as a money laundering front of the PFI.
“However, to conceal the laundering through Darbar Restaurant, he did not disclose the ownership of the asset to the GoI,” the official said. He said the probe found a transfer of Rs 3.5 lakh (from August 2018 to January 2021) from Ashraf to PFI member Anshad Badharudeen, who was arrested by the UP police Anti-Terrorism Squad in February 2021.