Andreas Frank reports: President Pranab Mukherjee today asked Enforcement Directorate to achieve greater efficiency and cooperate with concerned international agencies to expedite steps to bring back “stolen assets spirited abroad”.

Mukherjee made this veiled reference to blackmoney during the second ‘Enforcement Day’ function organised by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

The meeting was attended by President of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Vladimir Nechaev and Federal Office of Justice Swiss Confederation Mario Michel Affentranger among others.

“The Directorate should aim to work out modalities with international partners so that action with regard to restoration of stolen assets spirited abroad is expedited,” he said and asked it to interact with multilateral fora like FATF, the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG) and the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG).

He said the cooperation needs to be optimally utilised by the ED for bilateral exchanges and follow up with counterpart enforcement agencies for better mutual cooperation on Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT).

He also called for an international cooperation to tackle cross-border money laundering and terror financing so that a more “business friendly” legitimate investments flow into the country.

“Effective measures against Money Laundering and Terror Financing are essential in today’s global economic and security environment, and these are rightly being addressed on priority by most countries.

“Such measures also foster a more business friendly setting and facilitate legitimate investments and financial flows,” the President said at the function which was also attended by Revenue Secretary Rajeev Takru.

The President said India too has put in place a strong Anti Money Laundering legislation, the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to counter the menace.

“I also had the privilege of introducing in Parliament the Amendment Bill 2011 of the PMLA, through which, our nation strengthened the money laundering legislation, in line with the Recommendations of FATF,” Mukherjee said while recalling his days as the Union Finance Minister.

He drew attention about the presence of Affentranger and said it underlines the growing bilateral cooperation on law enforcement matters between Switzerland and India, as also the partnership between the counterpart agencies.

“Money laundering is a global menace, and law enforcement agencies of all countries have to cooperate to fight it,” he said.

India has been pressing Switzerland to give details of some Indians having money in the banks in that country but the Swiss authorities maintain they would be furnishing details of cases only after 2012 when Direct Tax Avoidance Treaty came into effect.

Switzerland does not cooperate in the matter of stolen data:

Swiss ambassador to India Linus Von Castelmur said his country could not cooperate in the matter as it related to stolen data, days after finance minister P Chidambaram sent a fresh letter to Switzerland pressing authorities to share information on Indian account holders in the HSBC Geneva list,

Swiss authorities had written to the finance ministry recently refusing to share data on the HSBC list. Following this, the FM had sent another letter – the third in four months – requesting Swiss authorities to expedite the matter.

The HSBC list had been given to India by French authorities who had obtained it from a disgruntled employee of HSBC. Switzerland has recently passed a law easing norms for sharing information of Swiss bank account holders with other countries. However, it does not cover stolen data.

Speaking at a function organized by Enforcement Directorate, Castelmur said, “We still have this position in our law that says that so-called stolen data cannot be used. I know India has not been stealing these data and they were given to Indian government by another European government but at the very beginning there was an act of robbery and obviously that is something that is disturbing.”

He said there has been stiff resistance in Swiss parliament on the issue of sharing of information on stolen data and though the matter was moving forward India would have to be patient. “Talking about taking time in India, you must be sympathetic to that because when I look sometimes to the speed, the pace of Indian judges and tribunals, I am sure you will give us another couple of months, even years,” he said.

Interestingly, tax authorities in India have already realized Rs 200 crore in taxes from account holders mentioned in the list and most accounts have been investigated.
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