Proceeds of crime, projected as untainted: the two sections the Enforcement Directorate works from

Background

The Enforcement Directorate searched 11 locations in Kerala and Tamil Nadu this week in a money-laundering investigation into a multi-State co-operative society, with premises covered in Kochi, Kozhikode and Chennai. The agency acts under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002, and Section 3 is where the offence is defined. A person is guilty of the offence if he directly or indirectly attempts to indulge in, knowingly assists, is knowingly a party to, or is actually involved in a process or activity tied to the proceeds of crime — concealing it, possessing it, acquiring it or using it — and then projects or claims that property as untainted. Section 4 sets the punishment at rigorous imprisonment of not less than three years, going up to seven years, along with a fine. Where the proceeds of crime relate to an offence in paragraph 2 of Part A of the Act's Schedule, that upper limit rises to ten years. The offences that bring the Act into play are the ones listed in its Schedule. In the Kerala case the police had earlier registered a case under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and produced the society's head before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, and a Crime Branch investigation is continuing.