INTRODUCTION: – The crime is a function which is the stigmata for the society which has becoming more and more habituate and regular situation to get handled by authority. There are many kind, between which one is money laundering, which also a remaining issue in India. This is a significant challenges for financial markets worldwide, including India.  The criminals have found new ways to launder money, and telegram a popular chat app, which has been used as an instrument. This blog explores the phenomenon of money laundering via Telegram in India.

BACKGROUND: – Telegram encryption and privacy features make it a popular for many activities. This app allows users to create groups and channels, which facilitates the anonymous exchange of information and transaction. Preferable place for criminals to exploit this for financial increment making the officials bewildered.     

KEY ASPECTS: – The aspects regarding money laundering are stringent, such as-

• This app’s privacy features helps to hide the criminals identity and transaction.
• Telegram offers used to facilitate cryptocurrency transaction, which are difficult to trace compared to traditional financial transaction.
• Massive chat rooms and channels on this enable the co-ordination of money laundering networks across different regions.

PROVISION: – India has robust legal framework to prevent this issues which are-

1. Under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), section 3 defines the money laundering, and section 4, section 5, section 45 etc, also can be used in this issue.
2. Also, there are also some additional such as, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), 1935, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), 1992 which have guidelines to financial institutions to implement and-money laundering (AML) parameters.

CASE LAW: – There are some important cases which also comes partially under this purview, which are-

• Sushil Kumar v. State of Haryana (2024), in this case has highlighted the money laundering and smuggling of human beings.
• The CEO of telegram Mr. Durov also going through investigation for this activity which has been conducted by the app.

CONCLUSION: – Through the technology this kind of crime is being conducted day by day, without any holding onto connected string. The features of this beneficial while making it more pernicious for the victims and addressing it more frequently can bring a tranquility in the society, which so our Online Legal Query team with legal experts and senior advocates has tried to make a move towards this issue and submitted this blog as a notification for the people for enlightening the awareness on this.