Lack of prosecutions hurts SA

FINANCIAL SCAMS: INTERNATIONAL CRIME SYNDICATES USE COUNTRY ‘AS SPRINGBOARD’

Government ‘needs to tackle syndicates to get off greylist’.

The lack of successful prosecution of large criminal networks remains a stumbling block as government races to beat the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) greylist deadline.

This is according to organised crime investigator Chad Thomas.

South Africa was greylisted a year ago by FAFT for failure to comply with international standards for preventing money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing.

In its quest to comply and get off the greylist by next January, government periodically meets FAFT to address 22 listed concerns that require action.

While SA Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago on Wednesday assured financial experts that South Africa will exit the greylist on the 2025 review date, a lot of work in law enforcement and prosecution is outstanding.

“We are still behind in enrolling and prosecuting cases involving major financial crime and money laundering syndicate,” said Thomas.

Last month, the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) decried the lack of cooperation from sectors such as legal practitioners, trust account managers and property companies.

Some of the companies were yet to comply and file all long outstanding risk and compliance returns (RCRs).

The deadline for doing so was March last year.

“At this stage, all entities in the legal practitioner sector who have failed to submit their outstanding RCRs by 31 May, are noncompliant and deemed as delinquent highrisk legal practitioner entities,” FIC said at the time.

Questions to FIC on the status of compliance by the identified high-risk sectors were unanswered, despite a promise to do so by Thursday.

But Thomas argued the required reporting process by the businesses is a minor concern.

“People are fixated with the state capture narrative and are losing sight of the fact that sophisticated international financial and organised crime syndicates are using South Africa as their springboard from which to launch massive scams targeting victims from around the world,” he said.

Albert van Zyl, a senior lecturer at the North-West University’s Unit for Corruption and Integrity Studies, also raised a lack of implementation by government.

“South Africa has an established finance and banking system, we also have a big economy and because of that, criminals infiltrate and use our systems,” Van Zyl said.