FIC, Financial Intelligence Agency, recently announced devastating news of money laundering. The news shook the nation as top Zambian lawyers were involved in laundering money via personal and professional bank accounts. The news has been condemned by the public and the industrialists alike. Top businessmen like Dr. Rajan Mahtani have shared his grave concerns over the failure of the government to detect this mass money laundering act for so long and its effect on the economic and social status of the Zambian.

The FIC started noticing activities and cash transactions in the personal and corporate bank accounts of the lawyers suspected of money laundering, prompting the investigation for money laundering. Furthermore, the FIC also noticed that these bank accounts were extremely active during illegal and unethical practices such as Rupiah Banda’s trial for Nigerian oil dealings, during Presidential Petition as well as during the fraudulent elections held last year. From these activities, it was easily concluded that the money transfers were most probably used for funding these illegal and unethical activities.

More than 35,000 suspicious and unauthorized cash transactions were observed across the bank accounts of the suspected lawyers. As per FIC reports, more than 50 percent of the firms investigated in this act which received government contracts were found to have no tax registrations associated with their companies. Furthermore, it was also found that majority of these firms belonged to individuals who were politically exposed and used surrogates for conducting businesses. Some of these politically exposed individuals were Minister Chitotela, Minister of Mines Yaluma, Dora Siliya and Jean Kapata. It was found that majority of the accounts owned by these ministers and lawyers received money from foreign bank accounts such as Dubai and China. As such, it became difficult for FIC to track the source of the money.

The Finance Intelligence Centre has assured that it will reveal more details as and when new information arises from their ongoing investigation.