FIU detects over Rs 7,800 cr black money; gets record STRs

New Delhi, The government has detected a whopping Rs 7,800 crore of illegal monies within the country and abroad in 2013-14 after the elite Financial Intelligence Unit detected a high number of suspicious monetary transactions through the country’s economic channels.
The Finance Ministry latest pegs the unaccounted income detected by the Income Tax Department at Rs 7,078 crore and that by Customs and Service Tax departments at Rs 750 crore — an all time-high.
An analysis of Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) obtained by the premier technical snoop wing under the Finance Ministry from various financial institutions across the country led to detection of crime proceeds “to the tune of Rs 20 crore and seized assets to the tune of Rs 17 crore,” the report said
Following the intelligence inputs, the I-T department has seized assets worth Rs 163 crore and the Service Tax department sealed assets worth Rs 17 crore during the same period, the report said.
The Enforcement Directorate also lodged 105 FIRs under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) under the same action, apart from its regular operations against money launderers and hawala operatives in same period.
“The total black money detected by FIU stands at Rs 7,848 crore during the last year,” a senior Finance Ministry official, who did not want to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media, said.
The official attributed unearthing of such large sums of money to a 100 percent jump in in receiving STRs, with 61,953 dossiers received in 2013-14 as compared to a mere 31,731 STRs received by it during 2012-13.
The agency also received a total of 87,79,082 Cash Transaction Reports (CTRs), 3,01,804 Counterfeit Currency Reports (CCRs) and 80,616 Non-Profit Organisation Transaction Reports (NTRs), the latest updated report, also submitted to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money, said.
Suspicious Transaction Reports is defined as a transaction that gives rise to a reasonable suspicion that it may involve proceeds of a crime or appears to be made in circumstances of unjustified complexity or gives reasonable grounds to suspect that it may be linked to terrorist activities.
Cash Transaction Reports is fund movement of the value of over Rs 10 lakh in one tranche or a series of transactions internally connected to each other in either Indian currency or foreign in the country’s banking or any other channel.
Counterfeit Currency Reports, as the name suggests, pertains to an instance of usage of fake currency in any bank by an entity while Non-Profit Organisation Transaction Reports pertain to filing of dossiers by Non-Governmental and non-profit organisations with regard to their economic operations.
All banking, financial intermidiaries, insurance companies, payment system operators and capital market operatives are stipulated to submit these reports to the FIU under money laundering laws.
During the same period, the FIU also sent 82 requests to its foreign counterparts after various law enforcement agencies in the country requested it to obtain information to help them with their investigations into black money.
The SIT on black money, mandated to deal specifically on the cases of illegal funds of Indians stashed abroad, had asked the government to further enhance the capabilities of FIU to check the menace of criminal funds.