120 Convicted in 6,312 ED Money Laundering Cases Between 2014-2025: Parliament Data [Read Order]

During a response to Unstarred Question No. 75 in the Lok Sabha, the Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, provided the figures of the enforcement activities conducted by the ED over an 11 year period. As part of his answer to the parliamentary question regarding file numbers registered with the ED during this time, Minister Shatrugan Prasad Sinha requested that he provide information about:

1. The total number and full calendar year breakdown of cases registered and subsequent convictions on a year-by-year basis between June 1, 2014, and November 1, 2025,

2. The status of the 49 cases where closure reports have been submitted to the court.

In his answer, Minister Chaudhary informed the Lok Sabha that the ED had filed 1,805 original prosecution complaints (PCs) and 568 supplementary prosecution complaints before Special Courts under the provisions of the PMLA during that timeframe.

Conviction Rate

The conviction statistics showcase a positive trend for the prosecution results obtained over the previous years. The most successful year was F.Y. 2024-25 when the Special Courts sentenced 38 individuals under provisions of PMLA, in contrast, F.Y. 2023-24 had 19 and F.Y. 2022-23 had 24 convictions.

In the early years, there was minimal success, with no convictions in F.Y. 2014-15. There were two convictions recorded in F.Y. 2016-17, which was the first time any individual had been convicted. Between now and F.Y. 2025, there have already been 15 convictions obtained during the current fiscal year.

GROWTH IN REGISTERED CASES

The data reflects an increase in the number of Registered cases post-FY 2019-20. The number of Registered cases increased from 152 in F.Y. 2018-19 to 557 in F.Y. 2019-20, it increased further to almost 1,000 in F.Y. 2020-21, with the highest number of registered cases ever recorded in the 2021-22 fiscal year. Since April 2025, the ED has registered 426 new cases and filed 159 new PCs during April to October, confirming that they will continue to expend an enormous amount of resources to facilitate the continuing application of enforcement.

93 Closure Reports Since 2019

In response to the specific question regarding the number of closure reports for 49 Cases submitted, Minister Chaudhary explained that the number was different. The amendment to the PMLA - Finance (No 2) Act, 2019 (No. 23 of 2019) created a new provision found under Section 44(1)(b) which requires that, beginning on 1st August 2019 and thereafter, any closure report submitted by the ED to any special courts must primarily relate to cases where the Money Laundering Offence could not be established. Accordingly, there have been 93 closure reports submitted by the ED to the relevant Special Courts, and not 49, as stated by the question. Several reasons for closure of cases were as follows:

1. Because of Closure of Registered Offences
2. Court Rulings Finding No Criminal Activity Relating to the Registered Offences as described under the PMLA.
3. Quashing of Predicate Offence(s)

Prior to the passage of this amendment, cases in which it was found that there was no criminal conduct related to a Money Laundering Offence, after conducting an appropriate investigation, were closed using an internal process requiring the appropriate internal approval from the Regional Office of the ED. From the time the PMLA was enacted in July 2005 and until 31.07.2019, there were 1185 cases closed by the respective Regional Office, without the necessity of a Court Reviewed or Court Approved Closure.

Analysis

A closer look at India's money laundering laws gives a complicated view of the government's enforcement of money laundering laws. The ED in 11 years, has brought only 6,312 charges and of these, has obtained just 120 convictions, yielding an overall conviction rate of approximately 1.9%. Their case registration activity has experienced a spike, from 152 reported cases in 2018-19 to 557 reported cases in 2019-20, as a result of the amendments enacted in 2019..

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There also seems to have been a change in the approach as the high of 1,116 reported cases were recorded by the end of March 2022, but only 128 prosecution complaints were filed during that same time period. During the 2024-25 reporting period, there were also 333 prosecution complaints filed for the 775 reported cases, indicating that the ED has developed a more selective and prosecution-ready approach to case development.

Conclusion

The data of Parliament over eleven years illustrates an evolving Anti Money Laundering system in India. As shown by the (ED) registering over 6300 investigations since 2014, the ED’s capability to investigate has drastically increased. Nevertheless, moving from an investigation to a conviction continues to be quite difficult, so far, only 120 convictions have been achieved. Yet, the trend is still positive, with the number of convictions increased from none at the beginning of this tracking period to 38 in 2024-25, indicating that improved facilities for preparing cases for prosecution and maturation of judicially reviewed case files has led to this improvement.

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