Mozambique: Country was used to launder €14.2 M from 2020 to 2023 – GIFiM

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Mozambique: Country was used to launder €14.2 M from 2020 to 2023 – GIFiM

4:03 CAT | 08 Jan 2024

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

Mozambique was used to launder a total of one billion meticais (€14.2 million) from 2020 to 2023, involving transfers abroad, including to Portugal, according to a report Lusa accessed this Monday.

According to the Strategic Analysis Report of the Financial Intelligence Office of Mozambique (GIFiM), which analyses data from January 2020 to October 2023, trade-based money laundering, “embodied in the use of legitimate channels , typical and common in commerce for the practice of acts of money laundering”, is at issue.

Actions are described as based on the “introduction of funds into the financial system using cash deposits in instalments, concealment through different accounts, followed by illicit export of capital under the pretext of importing goods or goods”, including the use of a private bank account “to the practice of commercial/business acts to the detriment of the bank account intended for commercial activity”.

According to the GIFiM report, the totals concerned in these operations amounts to one billion meticais (€14.2 million), with communications, information and reports having been analysed in that period, namely 357 Suspicious Operations Reports, 30 Suspicious Activity Reports and six Communications on the Duty to Abstain/Suspend a Transaction/Operation.

Three Requests for Information from the Attorney General’s Office, the Bank of Mozambique and the Tax Authority of Mozambique, and a Spontaneous Disclosure from a similar foreign entity, in addition to 13 disseminated Information/Financial Intelligence Reports, also contributed to this GIFiM report.

At the country level, the report concluded that there was a “predominance” in transactions/operations carried out from Maputo, the capital, in the south, and the cities of Nampula and Nacala, both in the province of Nampula, northern Mozambique.

At an international level, there was a predominance of transactions/operations involving Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Turkey, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Portugal and Mauritius.

“It is important to highlight that some of the jurisdictions mentioned here are offshore financial centres (tax havens), countries considered transit areas for international drug trafficking, as well as European countries, where the aforementioned funds are applied/invested predominantly in the real estate sector,” the report points out.

The GIFiM report also found that the entities involved in these money laundering operations in Mozambique “used customs processes fraudulently prepared to be presented to financial institutions”, namely with documents supporting instructions/requests for remittance/advance payment operations, to validate transfers abroad, “the practice of which is suspected to involve, for this purpose, the collaboration” of any individuals or companies whose activity is customs clearance, bank employees, public servants and lawyers.

Mozambique is strengthening national legislation with a view to leaving the “grey list” of the International Financial Action Group, whose “evidence” of implementation will have to be presented to that body between April and October this year.

Source: Lusa