FIC probes 1, 600 ‘shady’ deals

THE Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) is currently probing over 1, 600 suspicious transactions and has appealed to the public to give it and law enforcement agencies space to work for them to see the results.

And the FIC says it is not a witch hunt, all the 10 accounts that have been seized during the transition period have suspicious transactions.

FIC Director General, Mary Chirwa has clarified that there is no malice in the freezing of accounts for prominent people because these are matters it has been following up because they were found to have made illegal transactions.

She confirmed that FIC has seen transactions of different accounts where people are trying to externalise money by sending it to offshore jurisdictions and the matter was being followed up in cooperation with the law enforcement agencies.

Ms Chirwa said a lot of money was in the process of being moved out of the country which is a huge risk and that the FIC was trying to establish why almost all the K8.6 billion cash deposit was withdrawn within a few months.

She said FIC is concerned that there is so much money outside the banking system, and it was following up on the matter to find out why almost everything that is deposited has gone out.

“We are not being malicious in seizing these accounts, they have been seized because there are suspicious transactions on them and these are matters that we have been looking into,” she said.

Ms Chirwa said FIC would go flat out to ensure that it implements what is in the law so that Zambians people get what belongs to them.

She said the 10 accounts that have been frozen in the transition period have been reported to the law enforcement agencies.