ECOWAS Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundry Representative, Dr Timothy Melaye has harped on the need to curb money laundering saying, failure to address the menace will further disrupt the serenity of the society.
Melaye disclosed this at an interactive session organized by the Anti Money Laundering and Counter Financing Terrorism Civil Society Organisations Forum in Nigeria in Lagos recently, where he presented a paper on the “Implications of Fronting in AML/CFT.
He said we need a comprehensive policy reform agenda in the fight against money laundering, although the compliance with the AML/CFT standard is low.
Melaye stated that the media, need to be more vibrant and follow up cases and do indepth report on money laundering, individuals paraded which is usually swept under the carpet after sometime. It is the responsibility of the media to report money laundering cases and ensure that the citizens see perpetrators are persecuted and jailed.
He said that beneficial ownership need to revealed the true identities of those who owned companies so that we can curb corruption.
He said that a lot of money laundered into swiss anonymous account, without details of the person’s identity could not be retrieved once an unfortunate occurrence take places, this boosted the economy of Switzerland,that do not have natural resources.
“The issue of independent, autonomous money launderers can be identified so that we can take the wealth from those who cannot explain the source of that wealth.
Moreso, Melaye added that the legal aspects can come forth, where everyone should be able to provide evidence for his source of wealth. Now, with the autonomous money laundering laws, and the unexplained wealth order of the United Kingdom, you can be arrested when you have not committed any crime,if you cannot explain your source of income.
Melaye said, “We have had the Panama papers and now the Pandora papers. Each person would receive a list of people in their countries, the law enforcement should engage them and find out the authenticity of those lists and if there is anyone who has broken any law, the person should pay for it.”
He said fronting was not only about stealing money and giving it to you but about creating an avenue for you to create wealth through pseudo monopoly which causes tax evasion among others.
Melaye stated, “Illicit financial flow is the movement of funds from one jurisdiction to the other, funds that are not legitimately moving.
“It hurts the country where the money is leaving to the country where the money is going. For instance, the money that would have been used to finance projects and infrastructure, if stolen from the government, would have negative infrastructure.
“The countries that receive that money, also because they are not money for investments but to hide the money from proceeds of crime, it distorts their macroeconomic indicators.”
On her part, the Co-ordinator, AML/CFT CSO Forum, Efe Anaughe, stated that the best the civil society organisation could do was advocate and create more awareness at the grassroots because it was not a military arm and was not equipped to do any form of arrest.
