The Enforcement Directorate secured only eight or 0.1% convictions out of the 5,892 money-laundering cases it investigated between January 2015 and June 2025, the government told Parliament.

As many as 1,398 prosecution complaints, including 353 supplementary ones, had been filed in special courts under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in the 5,892 cases, Union Minister Pankaj Chaudhary said in a written reply to a question by Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale.

“Out of which, so far, the special courts have framed charges in 300 prosecution complaints, including 66 supplementary PCs [prosecution complaints],” Chaudhary said. “As on [June 30], the PMLA special courts have convicted 15 persons in eight conviction orders.”

He added that the Enforcement Directorate had filed 49 closure reports before the special courts during the 10-year period.

Sharing the reply on social media, Gokhale said the data showed how the central agency functioned as a “political mafia” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

“Of all cases filed by ED in 10 years, a shocking 77% cases never made it to court for trial because zero evidence,” Gokhale said in a social media post. “Modi [government] has used the ED as a personal mafia to target the Opposition.”

The Rajya Sabha MP added that in ED cases, “‘the process is the punishment’, which means that even innocent people take months to get bail”.

He added: “After spending crores of public money and jailing thousands of people, ED has a success rate of only 0.13% in 10 years. ED is nothing but a criminal syndicate of Modi & Shah whose only task is to run extortion rackets & washing machines for the BJP.”

Earlier this year, the Union government said that there had been two convictions out of the 193 cases registered by the ED against MPs, MLAs and local body members in the last 10 years.

One conviction took place in 2016-’17, and another took place in 2019-’20, Chaudhary had told the Rajya Sabha in March.

Also Read: How the Modi government has weaponised the ED to go after India’s Opposition