Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has unearthed what officials describe as a decade-long concealed operation inside the Jamia Islamia Ishaatul Uloom (JIIU) trust allegedly involving foreign-funding irregularities, hawala transactions and forged documentation used to facilitate the prolonged stay of a Yemeni couple on the madrasa campus in Akkalkuwa in Nandurbar.
Investigators say the trust projected one of the foreign nationals as “international faculty” to enhance its global profile and attract overseas donations, a pattern the agency believes amounts to money laundering, giving the ED jurisdiction to probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED’s action follows an FIR and chargesheet filed earlier this year by the Akkalkuwa police, which had alleged that several foreign nationals, including Yemeni national Al-Khadami Khaled Ibrahim Saleh, were involved in suspicious financial activities linked to the trust.
On December 1, the ED conducted searches at 12 locations, including the trust premises, residences of senior functionaries, and offices of intermediaries. During the raids, officials seized digital and documentary evidence of alleged illicit fund flows. Records suggest that between 2014-15 and 2023-24, the trust received nearly Rs406 crore in foreign donations from Kuwait, Botswana, the United Kingdom, Mauritius, Switzerland, Seychelles, and Panama.
The accused couple, Saleh and his wife Khadega Ibrahim Al-Nashiri, who came to India in 2012 with their child, reportedly aggressively raised foreign donations while staying on the campus for over a decade allegedly with the knowledge of the trust’s late founder, Ghulam Mohammad Randhera Vastanvi, and president, Hujefa Mohammad Randhera Vastanvi.
The ED investigation alleges in return, the trust allegedly used this Yemeni couple to aggressively raise foreign donations. Acting on behalf of senior functionaries, the couple reportedly travelled extensively over the past two years across major cities like Surat, Bharuch, Mumbai, Aurangabad, Nandurbar, Jalna, and Malegaon. The pair allegedly used specific mobile numbers to make frequent international calls to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, Qatar, Colombia, Paraguay, and Nepal.Officials allege these communications, conducted in a structured and suspicious pattern, were linked to the routing, mobilisation, and coordination of overseas donations for the trust. It is alleged that their movement and communication allowed them to manage foreign donations, coordinate with hawala operators, and maintain operational discretion, while projecting an image of active institutional oversight to overseas donors.
The ED alleged that the trust deliberately appointed Saleh as an “international teacher”, masking the fact that his residence in India was illegal, to create the impression that the madrasa employed foreign faculty. Officials said this enhanced the institution’s international profile and attracted higher overseas donations. Senior trust functionaries reportedly pressured the couple to liaise with relatives settled across multiple countries to mobilise contributions.
The probe further revealed that Saleh’s wife Al-Nashiri reportedly received money from relatives in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but these funds did not enter India through legal banking channels or documented remittances. Instead, the funds were allegedly routed through Yemeni intermediaries in Aurangabad and Mumbai, Isa Abdullah Mohammed and Hayna Ragui, who allegedly converted the funds into Indian currency and deposited them into Al-Nashiri’s HDFC Bank account in Akkalkuwa.
Officials said the hawala route was deliberately used to finance the couple’s prolonged illegal stay, circumvent FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) and immigration norms, and operate using forged Aadhaar and PAN cards, allegedly facilitated by the JIIU trust management. The ED alleged that the trust and its senior functionaries indirectly benefited from the arrangement by dealing with large amounts of unaccounted cash and diverting funds for purposes not permitted under statutory norms, including the couple’s travel to Delhi to apply for refugee or residential status with the UNHCR. This diversion qualifies as “proceeds of crime” under the PMLA, giving the ED jurisdiction to probe.
The Ministry of Home Affairs had earlier cancelled the JIIU trust’s FCRA registration on July 15, 2024, after determining that JIIU allegedly diverted foreign contributions to NGOs not registered under the FCRA.
After the couple’s arrival in 2012, officials alleged collusion with staff and doctors who produced fake medical and birth documents. In several cases, false records were allegedly submitted to local authorities and courts to secure government certificates and facilitate the family’s illegal residence on the madrasa campus.
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