Money laundering and cross-border enforcement

Detection and prosecution of illicit financial flows operate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, through the Enforcement Directorate's attachment and prosecution powers and the Financial Intelligence Unit's reporting architecture. FATF mutual evaluations and the grey-list mechanism create sovereign pressure to tighten compliance. Hawala and trade-based laundering channels exploit gaps between predicate-offence conviction and asset attachment, explaining why attachment rates consistently outpace conviction rates. Cross-border pharmaceutical trafficking and organised counterfeit smuggling networks with laundering dimensions fall here rather than under domestic drug-quality regulation.