ED to receive suspicious financial reports for its probes

The ED has recently been designated as a Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) in league with other agencies like CBI and Income Tax department to receive from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-IND) suspicious transaction and cash transaction reports to probe terror financing and money laundering charges.

The FIU is the central national agency responsible for receiving, processing, analysing and disseminating information relating to suspect financial transactions which it receives from banks and other financial institutions.

With the latest Memorandum of Understanding in place between the two agencies, the ED can now obtain reports of suspicious withdrawls and transactions as part of its ongoing probe and it would also be intimated about any such incident which can be bracketed under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), a senior Finance Ministry official said.

The ED, while probing cross-border investments and the trail of money across the country, needs a database which it can use to gather fast and reliable financial data. The new mechanism will help the agency keep a check on the suspicious money trail and collect incriminating inputs for a probe, the official said.

The MoU assumes significance as India has recently been elected as the member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) -- a top global body that chalks out policies to counter financial frauds.

A nodal officer will soon be appointed by the two agencies separately for exchange and liaison of information, the official said.

FIU-IND is also responsible for coordinating and strengthening efforts of national and international intelligence, investigation and enforcement agencies in pursuing the global efforts against money laundering and related crimes.