New techs complicate money laundering fight – FIC

There are new technologies everywhere. These are unleashed on the world almost on a daily basis. It is meant to make lives worth living because it makes things easier to deal with.

Difficult tasks are simplified and the speed at which one gets results is hastened. It has cut a lot of cost of doing things and brought in its wake greater efficiency.

However, what is expected to be a blessing also has brought in its wake, a lot of curses in that, criminals are finding them a useful tool to perpetrate fraud.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Financial Intelligence Center (FIC), Mr Kwaku Dua, has observed., new technologies are making it easier for criminals to launder money and move their proceeds across jurisdictions unnoticed,

He said although information, communication and technology (ICT) presented countries with enormous opportunities to track down criminals, they also boosted the operational strategies of persons behind the illicit flow of funds, thereby complicating the fight against the menace.

He said at the opening ceremony of a three-day meeting by global and sub-regional experts on anti-money laundering (ML) and counter terrorists financing (CTF) in Accra last week that countries needed to be more innovative to be able to counter the challenges emerging from the deployment of new technologies.

“You will agree with me that even recent developments regarding the use of new technologies, although present an opportunity to effectively deliver on our mandates, also offer an opportunity for crime to thrive,” he said at the opening of the 24th Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) Technical/plenary meeting and the GIABA Ministerial Committee (GMC) meeting.

“The use of virtual assets, increase in cyber-crime and aggressive tax avoidance schemes are all facilitated by the use of information technology, thus creating a new set of challenges to the fight against ML/TF,” the CEO of the FIC, which coordinates Ghana’s fight against the menace, said.

Way out

Mr Dua, who is the Chairman of the GIABA Technical Commission, said the development required that West African countries worked even harder to help eliminate money laundering and terrorist financing in the sub-region.

He said they also needed to collaborate to strengthen their respective AML/CFT regimes to ensure that “our respective jurisdictions are free from the menace of ML/TF.”

He thus commended the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for the support to the sub-region to implement policies meant to eliminate the menace.

Mutual evaluation

Per the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global body in charge of the money laundering and terrorists financing fight, countries are supposed to periodically subject themselves to a mutual evaluation exercise. The exercise is a peer review mechanism to assess the AML/CFT regimes of the countries in line with agreed standards.

Although all the 17 GIABA members have gone through the first round of mutual evaluations, not many have gone through the second round of evaluations.

The FIC CEO said the development was not encouraging, given the impact on the ML/CT fight.

“Since the commencement of the second round of mutual evaluations in 2016, only nine out of 17 member states have had their mutual evaluation reports adopted and published. This is to say that about half of our member states are yet to be evaluated and have their mutual evaluation reports adopted and published, understandably due to the challenges faced by GIABA,” the Chairman of the GIABA Technical Commission said.

“It is also observed that our performance in the second round of mutual evaluation shows that our level of compliance is not good enough. We are currently faced with a low level of compliance with the global standards, especially under the effectiveness criteria in the sub-region. This led to the FATF issuing statements placing some of our member states, including Ghana, on the ‘grey list,’ he said, but noted that through dint of hard, the country was able to exit the list earlier than expected.

Political will

He, thus commended President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the government for the political commitment that strengthened the hand of the FIC to develop policies, laws and regulations to help boost the country’s AML/CFT regime.

He said the government also provided enough resources for the centre to fund its activities and effectively discharge its mandate, leading to the successful exit from the FATF and European Union (EU) ‘grey lists.’

“May I also use this opportunity to humbly appeal to the authorities of member states to do same in their respective jurisdictions to enable their various financial intelligence units and competent authorities to discharge their duties as expected of them.”

“Colleague national correspondents (NCs) will agree with me that the process is a very difficult one and we will always need the support of our authorities,” the FIC CEO said.

Source: Daily Graphic