Mozambique: Kidnappers use foreign bank accounts for ransom payments

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Mozambique: Kidnappers use foreign bank accounts for ransom payments

3:36 CAT | 21 Jul 2020

Photo: Noticias

Kidnappers in Mozambique have been demanding that relatives of victims deposit money in bank accounts domiciled abroad to “evade the authorities,” the commander-general of the Mozambican police said on Tuesday.

“We have instructed the teams of the National Criminal Investigation Service to check what names the accounts abroad are in and what amounts have been deposited in such accounts,” the commander-general of the Mozambican police, Bernardino Rafael, said quoted today by the newspaper “Notícias”.

The manoeuvre aims to “mislead the authorities,” making it difficult to investigate the location of the criminals, he added.

“We want to know the names, the banking entity and the country so that we can act to hold the criminals accountable,” said Bernardino Rafael.

After a wave of kidnappings in major Mozambican cities, which peaked between 2012 and 2013, these cases were reduced in recent years, but in recent months the authorities have registered kidnappings again, with seven since the beginning of the year.

Data from the Attorney General’s Office indicates that 15 criminal cases for kidnapping were opened in 2019, one more than the previous year.

Source: Lusa