FIC seizes 10 accounts for fishy dealings

ABOUT 10 accounts have been seized since the August 12, 2021 elections as a result of suspected illegalities, Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) Director General, Mary Chirwa has said.

Ms Chirwa said there had been numerous attempts to transfer huge amounts of money to offshore accounts after the election.

She said FIC had so far recorded over 250 suspicious transactions since the election and that 10 accounts had been frozen and reported to law enforcement agencies.

Ms Chirwa however said it was frustrating that law enforcement agencies were not doing enough to prosecute the reported cases to closure.

She said during the Sunday Interview Programme on ZNBC that out of 10 reported cases, law enforcement agencies could sometimes only fully prosecute only one case.

Ms Chirwa however said lately, there had been some improvements with regard to prosecution but that more still needed to be done.

She said there was need to strengthen the entire value chain when dealing with suspicious transactions so that more cases were brought to closure.

“FIC just reports suspicious transactions to law enforcement agencies which prosecute the cases after they go through the National Prosecutions Authority and then the courts. So we needed all these to be strengthened,” Ms Chirwa said.

And Ms Chirwa said the FIC does not leak any information on individuals being investigated or those whose accounts had been frozen.

She said FIC was legally forbidden from disclosing information to the public about people being probed.