The Enforcement Directorate has arrested as many as 374 people, including directors of a few companies who were involved in money laundering, in the last five years from April 1, 2018 to February 28, 2023. It has also attached properties worth nearly Rs 39,000 crore in major corporate fraud cases.

The information was provided by minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary to the Lok Sabha on Monday in response to an unstarred question on money laundering by companies. “No separate data related to corporate fraud is being maintained because PMLA cases generally involve several other offences also,” he said.

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However, in major cases of corporate fraud such as Sterling Biotech, fraud committed by companies of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, the ED has attached properties worth Rs 33,862.20 crore. Of this, assets worth Rs 15,113.02 crore have been confiscated and restituted to the public sector banks. The consortium of banks led by State Bank of India has also realised Rs 7,975.27 crore by sale of assets handed over to them by the ED.

Meanwhile, responding to another question, the minister said that the income tax department has conducted 602 search operations on groups for suspected tax evasion in between April 2022 and January 2023 and assets worth Rs 1,533.23 crore were seized in the period. A total of 2,841 searches were conduced and assets worth Rs 4,863.12 crore were seized from these groups between the fiscal 2019-20 to 2022-23 (uptill January 2023).

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No proposal for additional levy on beedis

There is no proposal to impose an additional tax on beedis, minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary informed the Lok Sabha on Monday. He was responding to a question on tax on tobacco products and whether the government will impose an additional tax on beedis to discourage beedi smoking as it is more harmful than cigarette smoking.

Based on the decision of the Goods and Services Tax Council, the rate of GST compensation cess levied on specified commodities like pan masala, gutkha, chewing tobacco have been revised, he further said.