In accordance with the terms of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has filed a Supplementary Prosecution Complaint against two leaders of the Popular Front of India (PFI) before the Hon’ble Special PMLA Court in Lucknow. The Court has taken cognizance of the offence of money laundering.
The ED had previously filed a Prosecution Complaint on February 6, 2021, against five officers and members of PFI and its student’s arm, Campus Front of India. The Court found all of the accused guilty of the crime of money laundering.
The PFI leaders Abdul Razaq Peediyakkal @ Abdul Razak BP and Asharaf Khadir @ Ashraf M.K. have been named in the Supplementary Prosecution Complaint. They, along with other PFI leaders and members connected to foreign entities, were building the Munnar Villa Vista Project (MVVP) in Munnar, Kerala, with the intent to launder money obtained from both foreign and domestic sources and to raise money for PFI to finance its radical policies. According to the investigation, MVVP was housing “proceeds of crime” in the form of unaccounted-for and unexplained cash as well as foreign monies that were presented as clean.
According to the investigation, Abdul Razak BP, a long-time committed member of PFI and its affiliated organisations who also served as PFI Divisional President for Perumpadappu, Malappuram, Kerala, was a key representative of these organisations in the Gulf nations and was actively involved and crucial in the fund-raising efforts of PFI in India and abroad. He wired Rehab India Foundation (RIF), a front for PFI, about Rs. 34 lakh from the UAE. He also sent Rs. 2 lakh to M. K. Faizy, the leader of PFI’s political front, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). Investigations further showed that he was engaged in fund-raising and collection activities overseas and that he sent around Rs. 19 Crore to India via unofficial or illegal routes.
Investigations also showed that Ashraf M.K., a member of the PFI Kerala State Executive Council [previously the PFI President of the Ernakulam District], who was initially charged by the NIA in the hand-chopping case against Professor Joseph in 2010, actively participated in the activities of PFI’s affiliated organisations, including SDPI, CFI, etc., and was also involved in funding both PFI and its affiliated organisations. He was the proprietor of the Darbar restaurant in Abu Dhabi, which PFI used as a front to launder money. He did not reveal his ownership of Darbar restaurant to the government authorities, however, in order to hide the laundering of criminal funds through that establishment.
Through the Darbar restaurant, he collaborated with Abdul Razak BP to carry out the money-laundering operations of PFI and associated organisations. He earned around Rs. 48 lakh in criminal gains through his brother, who managed the Darbar restaurant in Abu Dhabi. He also owned another business, Tamar India Spices Pvt. Ltd., which was allegedly utilised to conceal criminal gains.
Both Abdul Razaq BP and Ashraf M.K. were detained during an inquiry for the crime of money laundering in accordance with Section 19 of the PMLA. In the current Supplementary Prosecution Complaint submitted by the ED, proceeds of crime of about Rs. 22 Crore have been identified.
Accordingly, the PMLA investigation has shown that Abdul Razak BP and Ashraf MK formed a criminal conspiracy to gather money in India and overseas and fraudulently transfer the money through unofficial and illegal methods, with the active collaboration and assistance of other PFI members. A significant portion of the aforementioned monies was utilised by PFI and its connected businesses to carry out their ongoing radical and illegal operations, while a portion was parked in the MVV project and TISPL and was perceived as clean. The money that Abdul Razak BP, Ashraf MK, and their friends have raised or amassed as a consequence of illegal behaviour connected to the crime of criminal conspiracy qualifies as “proceeds of crime.”
They claimed that “proceeds of crime” from the criminal conspiracy under Section 120B of the IPC, a scheduled offence under PMLA, were transferred to the bank accounts of RIF, Ashraf MK, Abdul Razak BP, invested in MVVPL, TISPL, withdrawn in cash, etc. through a variety of bank accounts with the clear intent to conceal their source and avoid direct ties to PFI while being used in its numerous illegal activities (ATS).
One 32-bore handgun and seven live cartridges were taken from them in FIR No. 04/2021 dated 16.02.2021 along with PFI member Firoz Khan and improvised explosive devices.
According to the aforementioned FIR, some PFI members planned to form a terrorist organisation and were gathering lethal weapons and explosive devices in order to carry out simultaneous attacks on a number of significant and sensitive targets in UP with the aim of undermining the nation’s unity, integrity, and sovereignty as well as tormenting intergroup harmony.
More supplemental prosecution complaints will be filed in the future as part of ongoing investigations into PFI and its connected companies’ money laundering practices and the use of those monies for other illegal actions.
