ED files charge sheet against LeT operative for money laundering, terror funding

The ED has filed a charge sheet against a jailed operative of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based proscribed terror group, on charges of money laundering and acting as a terror financing conduit.

In a statement, the agency said a prosecution complaint (charge sheet) was filed against Mohammed Umer Madani, aged about 60 years, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) before a special court here on March 30.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) took up the case on the basis of an FIR and charge sheet filed against Madani by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police that had arrested them in 2009 with fake Indian currency notes with a face value of Rs 50,000, USD 8,000, Nepalese rupee 4,067 and some documents.

Madani, the ED said, was based in Nepal and was operating as an organiser for the LeT. He is serving a jail term now in connection with the Delhi Police case, it said.

The probe revealed that Madani was "the right hand of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and LeT chief Zaki-ur-RehmanLakhwi, both residents of Pakistan, and that he was working for them to spot recruits for terrorist activities, to organise training in Lashkar camps, launching LeT terrorists in India via India-Nepal border and distributing funds to LeT modules in India and Nepal".

Madani was involved in hatching conspiracy with other LeT militants in order to carry out terrorist and disruptive activities in India, the statement said.

"During investigation under the PMLA, it was revealed that Madani was maintaining various bank accounts in Nepal in which huge amounts of cash were deposited and subsequently withdrawn by him. It is on record that he did not have any source of income except the money provided by his handlers from Pakistan," the ED alleged.

The agency said Madani was regularly coming to Bihar and other states of India to fund LeT modules for carrying out terrorist activities.