Money laundering charges have been brought against the Popular Front of India (PFI) and three of its office holders, Perwez Ahmad, Mohammad Ilias, and Abdul Muqueet, by the Special Court (PMLA), Patiala House, New Delhi. The fundraising efforts of PFI were overseen by Perwez Ahmad, President of PFI’s Delhi Unit, who also handled public relations for PFI. The Delhi-NCR region saw Md. Ilias, General Secretary of Delhi PFI, actively raise money for PFI and other affiliated organisations. Md. Ilias ran for the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) in the Delhi Assembly elections in 2020 from Karawal Nagar.
The Delhi Police detained Perwez Ahmad and Md. Ilias in connection with the rioting in North East Delhi in February 2020. Abdul Muqeet, the office secretary for Delhi PFI, participated extensively in the organization’s fundraising efforts and the creation of phoney cash donation slips.
On September 22, 2022, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) searched the locations of the aforementioned accused parties, seizing digital devices as well as damning papers. The aforementioned accused individuals were arrested on September 22, 2022, for their participation in the crime of money laundering, and they are currently being held in judicial custody in Tihar Jail in New Delhi. The Enforcement Directorate filed a complaint for prosecution against the defendant on November 19, 2202.
On the basis of an FIR filed by the NIA, Delhi, in which various provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 were invoked, ED opened a PMLA probe into PFI, its office bearers, and affiliated businesses.
In a bigger plot to gather money for its illegal and anti-national actions that threaten the unity, integrity, and security of the state, PFI created proceeds of crime through criminal conspiracy (Section 120B of the IPC), both in India and overseas, according to the PMLA inquiry. Cash donations from PFI sympathizers/members were mistaken for proceeds of crime that were raised and sent in the form of cash deposits in PFI’s bank accounts. In order to present the money as legal, PFI leaders have also put it in peoples’ personal bank accounts and then transferred the identical amount of money from those accounts to PFI’s accounts.
The research also showed that PFI is present throughout the Gulf nations in a well-organized and structured manner, generating and mobilising money as part of a criminal conspiracy.
Instead of being directly deposited into PFI’s bank accounts, these foreign funds are secretly sent to India through shady and illegal channels or are sent there in the form of foreign remittances into the bank accounts of sympathisers, office holders, members, and their relatives and associates, who are located in India, before being transferred to PFI’s bank accounts. To hide the foreign origin and trail of the proceeds of crime, this form of layering and convoluted routing is used. The proceeds of crime have been created, put, stacked, blended, and then projected into PFI’s bank accounts as clean money.
Along with other PFI office-holders and members, Perwez Ahmed (PFI Delhi President), Md. Ilias (PFI Delhi General Secretary), and Abdul Muqeet (PFI Delhi Office Secretary) were a crucial part of this conspiracy and played crucial roles in the façade of phoney cash donations through which proceeds of crime were concealed, possessed, and projected as clean money.
86.36 lakh rupees in proceeds of crime totalling 24 PFI bank accounts and Rs. 8.22 lakh in 7 Rehab India Foundation bank accounts—a PFI-affiliated entity—have previously been temporarily seized by the ED. The inquiry into PFI and its officeholders is still ongoing.
