SDPI money laundering case: ED conducts raids at seven locations

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted searches at several locations across the country in connection with the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) money laundering case on Thursday, an ED statement said.

Searches were conducted at Mettupalaiyam, Coimbatore, and Arcot, Vellore in Tamil Nadu, Bhilwara and Kota in Rajasthan, Kolkata in West Bengal, and Kottayam and Pallakad in Kerala, the statement added.

SDPI leader and national president MK Faizy was arrested in an alleged case of money laundering related to the proscribed Popular Front of India (PFI), under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, on March 3. A Delhi court had extended Faizy's ED custody by three days on March 10.

On March 4, the court sent Faizy to custody on the plea of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) seeking his interrogation and confronting him to unearth the money trail in the case and conspiracy.

Two days later, the ED conducted nationwide searches as part of the investigation against the SDPI. The searches were carried out at two locations in Delhi, including the SDPI headquarters in Nizamuddin West, Thiruvananthapuram and Malappuram in Kerala, Nandyal in Andhra Pradesh, Pakur in Jharkhand, Thane in Maharashtra, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow and Jaipur, a PTI report said.

SDPI's links with PFI

The SDPI, founded in 2009 and headquartered in Delhi, is alleged to be the political front of the now banned PFI.

The party, however, denies any such link and calls itself an independent outfit. According to the SDPI, Faizy was among the founder leaders of the organisation and was elected its national president in 2018.

He is a Islamic scholar and a political observer who served as a Masjid Imam in the 1980s, the SDPI portal said.

The organisation, according to officials in the investigative agencies, has a "strong" influence in various pockets of Kerala and Karnataka and some other southern states.

The ED, as part of its probe against the PFI in 2022, had linked Faizy with a Kerala-based PFI leader named Abdul Razak BP who is alleged to have transferred ₹2 lakh to the SDPI national president as part of the fund raising activities of his organisation.

(With inputs from agencies)