By Manoj Kumar and Nikunj Ohri
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -The global anti-money laundering watchdog, the financial Action Task Force (FATF) urged India on Thursday to speed up its prosecutions in financial fraud cases.
The 40-member FATF, established in 1989, rated India “moderately” effective on its parameter of “money laundering investigation and prosecution” in a report, while saying the country was compliant in most areas.
The report urged India to impose strict limits on cash transactions involving precious metals and stones as it posed risks for monitoring.
The task force sets global standards for national authorities cracking down on illicit funds generated through drug trafficking, illegal arms trade, cyber fraud and other serious crimes.
India became a member in 2010. In its report the task force said the country was “compliant” and “largely compliant” on 37 out of 40 parameters evaluated as part of its assessment.
The number of money laundering convictions over the last five years has been impacted by a series of constitutional challenges and by the saturation of the court system, the global watchdog said in its report on India, released on Thursday. India’s courts have huge backlogs of cases, with many left pending for years.
The government is trying to speed up the prosecution process, a finance ministry official told reporters after the release of the report.
“The government has now a system of notifying special courts and we are inducting more prosecutors to expedite trials,” said Vivek Aggarwal, additional secretary at Department of Revenue in the finance ministry.
He said the measures taken by India in recent years have helped achieve better ratings.
The Enforcement Directorate, India’s anti-money laundering agency, has seized assets of suspected financial criminals amounting to 9.3 billion euros ($10.4 billion) over the last five years but confiscation based on convictions amounted to less than $5 million, the report said.
“It is critical India addresses these issues in view of accused persons waiting for cases to be tried and prosecutions to be concluded,” it said.
The three areas in which there is partial compliance include bank scrutiny of political figures’ source of wealth and oversight of the finances of non-profit organisations and non-financial businesses and professionals.
The country must implement measures to prevent the non-profit sector from being misused for terrorist financing, following a risk-based approach that includes outreach to these organisations about potential risks, it said.
The watchdog also noted that India faced terrorist financing threats from groups active in the Jammu & Kashmir region and money laundering from illegal activities related to corruption, drug trafficking and cyber crime.
“India needs to focus on concluding the prosecutions and convict and appropriately sanction terrorist financiers,” the FATF statement said.
As part of the oversight, FATF has placed India under “regular follow-up” requiring a progress report in three years.
($1 = 0.8958 euros)
(Reporting by Manoj Kumar; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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