“High risk” of financing terrorism in Mozambique – AIM report

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“High risk” of financing terrorism in Mozambique – AIM report

10:16 CAT | 20 Apr 2022

Image: gabinete de Informação Financeira de Moçambique

There is a high risk of the financing of terrorism in Mozambique, according to a report commissioned by the Mozambican government itself.

The document, written between July 2020 and March 2021, seeks to identify threats and vulnerabilities, and to understand the risks involved in the fight against money-laundering and the financing of terrorism.

According to the summary of the report, published in Tuesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Moçambique”, the factors that underlie money-laundering and the financing of terrorism include the porous nature of Mozambique’s borders, corruption, high flows of immigration, the fragility of Mozambican institutions, and the lack of regulation and supervision over the activities and the accounts of NGOs.

Instability and terrorism in the Horn of Africa and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) also facilitate the financing of terrorism in Mozambique, says the report.

The sources of such financing, it argues, include poaching (for ivory and rhinoceros horns), drug trafficking, illicit mining and trade in gems and precious metals (particularly gold and rubies), trafficking in human beings, and the illicit export of capital. The report also links terrorism to the spate of kidnappings of business people in Mozambican cities: the ransoms demanded, often for very large sums, could be used to finance terrorism.

“These sources can be used to finance acts of terrorism abroad, and from abroad the money may return to finance terrorism in Mozambique”, says the report.

The purpose of terrorism, it adds, may be to create opportunities for illicit business in ivory, rubies, narcotics and hardwoods.

The authors of the report point to real estate and vehicle sales as “factors of vulnerability”, since nobody is regulating or supervising these activities, which are dominated by foreigners, particularly Pakistanis and Nigerians.

The countries that pose the greatest threat to Mozambique, in terms of financing terrorism, are Tanzania, the DRC, Uganda. Kenya and Somalia. Citizens from these countries have been found in the terrorist groups launching attacks against the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado.

But the report also admits that Mozambique may pose a threat to Tanzania and South Africa, given that citizens of these countries are undertaking illicit activities on Mozambican soil.

This report was drafted by a Multi-Sector Technical Group, coordinated by the Financial Intelligence office. Private business and civil society organisations collaborated, and the World Bank financed the research.

You may read/ download the original ‘Relatório de Avaliação Nacional dos Riscos de Branqueamento de Capitais e Financiamento do Terrorismo’ document, in Portuguese. HERE.

Source: AIM