Somalia has absolved four money remittance firms operating in the country from accusations of abetting money laundering and disbursement to individuals sanctioned for supporting terrorist groups….
In a report published on Friday, the Somali Central Bank says there is insufficient evidence Amal, Iftin, Taaj and Dahabshill money transfer services were used to remit cash to individuals fingered for aiding the al-Qaeda group in the Gulf region, The Somali regulator though noted that there has to be improvement on compliance and is proposing tougher penalties for those who flout.
“The CBS (Central Bank of Somalia) audit team did not find any evidence of UN sanctions list violations by the four MTBs mentioned in the GI-TOC report. More specifically, none of the senders or recipients of the funds were on any UN sanctions list at the time of the transactions,” says the report authored by the regulator’s Licensing and Supervision Department.
Crucially, the alleged receipts published in the GI-TOC report are inconsistent with the official MTBs receipts (both paper and electronic) of the same period, suggesting that they may not be genuine.
Amal and Dahabshill, both headquartered in the UAE, also have affiliated banks licenses by the Somalia Central Bank. All the four firms are headquartered outside of Somalia, but have been used by individuals, NGOs and even UN agencies to send money to Somalia, through an informal system known as Hawala, where the banked population is low.
Investigation of transactions
The findings are based on a report by the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC), in October last year, which said individuals had either directly or through proxies received money through the four transfer services.
The report arose from an investigation of transactions made through the four firms, amounting to $3.7 million in 18 transactions to purchase illegal arms. Two batches of payments amounting to $40,000 aroused suspicion for possibly settling illegal arms purchases from a sanctioned individual in Yemen. The payments were made from the city of Bosaso in Puntland.
