Arinsa News



  • From the UK’s first Deferred Prosecution Agreement to a plea bargain in Tanzania

    Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA. The first Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) of the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office (SFO), secured on 30 November 2015 at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, has on 26 August 2020 given rise to a plea bargain settlement in Tanzania. As announced by Tanzania’s National Prosecutions Service (NPS), this nets the Tanzanian authorities TZS 1.5 billion (approx. USD 650,000 or GBP 500,000). Standard Bank PLC (now ICBC Standard Bank PLC) was the subject of an SFO investigation.. Read More...

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    Mozambique: London hidden debts trial may call Presidente Filipe Nyusi

    Credit Suisse is threatening to call the president of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, in the trial opposing the investment bank to the African state in the High Court of London in the case of ‘hidden debts’, due to be heard next year. The Attorney General’s Office of Mozambique initiated this case in the British courts to try to cancel the debt of $622 million (552.6 million euros) of the state-owned company Proindicus to Credit Suisse and to demand compensation to cover all losses resulting from the ‘hidden debt’ scandal. Read More...


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    The scandal that kept ex-TRA boss Kitilya behind bars for 4 years

    Dar es Salaam, TANZANIA. Former Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) commissioner general Harry Kitilya, 70, and four other people breathed fresh air yesterday after languishing in remand prison for four years in one of Tanzania’s high profile and dramatic Sh12 billion ($6 million) bribery scandal. The Corruption and Economic Crimes Division of the High Court declared Kitilya, the 1996 Miss Tanzania and former head of Investment Banking with Stanbic bank, Shose Senare, and former chief legal officer to the bank Sioi Sumari free after they entered a plea bargain agreement with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to pay a whopping Sh1.5 billion for their freedom. Read More ...

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    Why Haji wants Obado and his three children jailed

    Nairobi, KENYA. It is end of the road for Migori Governor Okoth Obado and his proxies whom he is alleged to have used to siphon millions of county funds to local and offshore accounts. Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji on Tuesday approved the arrest and prosecution of Obado and his three children, dealing a staggering blow to the family as the governor is separately battling murder charges. Obado will now be barred from accessing office, a precedent that has already been set in other graft cases. Read More ...

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    "Masai" stares life imprisonment in the face

    Nairobi, KENYA. One of the country’s most prolific killer cops is staring at a possibility of spending life in prison after he was convicted for wildlife trafficking offences and abuse of a government firearm.

    Corporal Henry Mokua Onsongo popularly known as Masai was celebrated and revered in equal measure for his extrajudicial executions of hardcore criminals and brutality while dealing with budding ones. But he is now awaiting sentencing for the offences that attract life imprisonment and an alternative fine of up to Sh20 million. Read More...

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    Covid-19 relief: NPA freezes 28 bank accounts as huge UIF ‘fraud’ comes to light

    Pretoria, SOUTH AFRICA. Nearly R6m in Covid-19 relief funds - intended for 200 workers at risk of starvation - were diverted to one man in what Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) investigators are calling a glaring instance of fraud and money-laundering. In what appears to be a manipulation of the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) relief system that has given a lifeline to 3.6-million people, a large labour broker's Covid-19 Temporary Employment Relief Scheme (Ters) claim was allegedly paid to one man - Tshepang Phohole.

    The NPA's Sipho Ngwema said investigators acted quickly to secure the money that remained. "We placed our focus on securing the stolen money as quickly as possible. Law enforcement agencies have come together to form an oversight structure which seeks out Covid-19-related corruption and that is how this incident was picked up," he said. Read More ....

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    EU lists Mauritius as high-risk country for money laundering

    May 2020.  The European Commission (EC), the executive branch of the EU, put Mauritius on its list of high-risk countries with strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing frameworks.
    • Signals that Mauritius could be blacklisted started earlier this year when the county was put on the FATF’s “grey list” if they did not curb the mushrooming of terror funding and money laundering activities.
    • Several investors in East Africa, like commercial and investment banks and insurance firms, have registered firms in Mauritius because of the tax benefits, eliciting calls for investigations of the double taxation agreements. Read More ...

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    ZIMRA Official house forfeited to the state

    Harare, ZIMBABWE. Former Zimra revenue officer Mr Kennedy Nyatoti has made history by becoming the first person to lose assets under Zimbabwe’s civil-based asset forfeiture law when his US$150 000 mansion and US$10 000 car were forfeited to the State after he and his divorced wife failed to explain how they could afford these.

    Mr Nyatoti’s lawful income between October 2014 and May 2018 was US$44 907, and it was established that he neither had private income nor was he running a private business. So he failed to explain how he managed to build the US$150 000 mansion in Mabvazuva suburb in Harare and buy a Honda CRV valued at US$10 000.

    Zimra’s lifestyle audit team discovered the mansion and car, after perusing the claims made during the divorce proceedings between Mr Nyatoti and his wife. Read More

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    DPP, EACC hand over Ksh.2B of corruption proceeds to Covid-19 emergency fund

    Nairobi, Kenya. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) on Tuesday presented a donation of Ksh.2 billion to the National Treasury as part of efforts to beef up the Covid-19 emergency fund.

    DPP Noordin Haji and EACC boss Twalib Mbarak, while issuing the dummy cheque to Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani, said the funds were part of recovered proceeds of crime such as corruption and money laundering.

    DPP Haji said the prosecution fund established last year had so far netted Ksh.2.9 billion, from which the Ksh.2 billion presented to Treasury had been retrieved to aid in the fight against the novel coronavirus.

    “We have various institutions dealing with corruption. A lot more money is out there but because cases are not complete, we can’t use it. We have to wait for the cases to be complete,” noted Haji.. Read More ...

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    How U.S. Firms Helped Africa’s Richest Woman Exploit Her Country’s Wealth

    It was the party to be seen at during the Cannes Film Festival, where being seen was the whole point. A Swiss jewellery company had rented out the opulent Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, drawing celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Campbell and Antonio Banderas. The theme: “Love on the Rocks.”

    Posing for photos at the May 2017 event was Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman and the daughter of José Eduardo dos Santos, then Angola’s president. Her husband controls the jeweller, De Grisogono, through a dizzying array of shell companies in Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands.

    But the lavish party was possible only because of the Angolan government. The country is rich in oil and diamonds but hobbled by corruption, with grinding poverty, widespread illiteracy and a high infant mortality rate. A state agency had sunk more than $120 million into the jewellery company. Today, it faces a total loss. Read More ...

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    APA and UNODC join to combat wildlife crime

    PRETORIA, 6 February 2020 – A three-day high-level combating transnational organised crime and enhancing asset forfeiture conference jointly organised by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Southern Africa and the African Prosecutors Association (APA), in co-operation with UK Department for International Development and United States, International Narcotics Law Programmes was concluded in Pretoria. This workshop was part of a bigger initiative that included the deployment of mentors, national and regional workshops and the development of training manuals. Together, all of these initiatives are aimed to help to achieve the 2030 Agenda advancing the targets and indicators of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1, SDG 8, SDG12, SDG14 and 15. This workshop also addressed SDG 16 and 16.4 that deals with Illicit Financial Flows. Read More ...

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    Luanda Leaks show large firms aided Dos Santos' offshore empire

    A trove of 715,000 leaked emails, charts, contracts, and audits details how the daughter of the former Angolese president Isabel dos Santos, reportedly Africa’s richest woman, managed to amass and shield her billion fortune with the help of western consulting and accounting firms. Boston Consulting Group, Price Water house, PwC, McKinsey & Company, and Accenture provided financial services to do Santos and her husband, Sindika Dokolo, a high-profile Congolese businessman and art collector, that allowed them to safeguard their fortune abroad.. Read More ...

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    AML: A Shocking $8.14 billion of fines handed out in 2019

    A shocking $8.14 billion of fines for AML handed out in 2019, with USA and UK leading the charge. 

    Encompass Corporation, a fast-growing provider of intelligently automated Know Your Customer (KYC) solutions, has carried out an analysis of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) related penalties handed down between 1 January and 31 December 2019.

    Key observations: 

    • 58 AML penalties handed down globally in 2019, totalling $8.14bn 
    • This is double the amount, and nearly double the value, of penalties handed out in 2018, when 29 fines of $4.27bn were imposed 
    • Regulators in the USA were most active, handing out 25 penalties totalling $2.29bn 
    • UK followed with 12 fines totalling $388.4m 
    • Largest monetary fine was $5.1bn and originated from France 
    • Average monetary fine for 2019 was $145.33m 
    • 2019 was record year, in terms of number of penalties handed out (58), ahead of 2016 (47) 
    Read More ...

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    The Organised Crime Index - Africa 2019


    Lives are lost, forests and oceans are pillaged beyond the point of replenishment, animals are slaughtered, women, men, girls and boys are held in situations of violent abuse and exploitation. Customs officials receive bribes to turn their backs to a shipment of drugs. Police officers and soldiers sell their weapons on to street gangs. Politicians accept kickbacks, fix contracts and sell concessions to criminal groups and unethical corporations, so that they can profit from resources that were intended to improve the development opportunities of citizens. The harms caused by organised crime are widespread and profound Yet because it is almost always obscured in the 'underworld', hidden in the shadows of remote borderlands, concealed in secrecy jurisdictions or felt most keenly by underserved communities, organised crime is a threat too easily overlooked 'Organised crime' is not a term that has tended to be used in the African context. However, as the political economy of the continent is evolving and intertwining with other geopolitical and globalisation dynamics, the term is currently being applied to the continent with increasing frequency – and urgency It describes everything from a range of illicit activities and actors, from human smuggling by militia groups along the North African coast... Read More ...

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    A Lambo, and other luxury cars seized during formwer eTekwini mayor - Zandile Gumede and co raid

    Durban, South Africa. The Amaoti home of former eThekwini Mayor Zandile Gumede and luxury cars from her co-accused in the Durban Solid Waste tender scandal were among the assets seized by authorities on Thursday.

    The Hawks together with the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) swooped in on the fraud, corruption and money laundering accused in the matter.

    While authorities managed to seize Gumede’s Amaoti luxury home, they were given an early morning surprise when she was not at her palatial Umhlanga home – the address she provided to police as part of her bail conditions.

    “It only transpired today that she was renting that house,” Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said. Read More ...


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    ESWATINI Signs the Dar es Salaam Declaration on strengthening asset forfeiture for development

    MBABANE – "Be afraid. Be very afraid". This above phrase which originated from the 1986 horror film, They Fly, could be used as a warning to criminals especially those involved in international crimes.

    Those who will be found to have been involved in international crimes can now have their offshore or international assets forfeited to the State.

    This is because the Government of Eswatini is now a fully-fledged member of the Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Network of Southern Africa (ARINSA) following the signing of the Dar Es Salaam Declaration on strengthening asset forfeiture for development.

    The signing was held yesterday at the Cabinet offices where the Director of Public Prosecutions Sandile Phila Dlamini had the honours of signing it in the presence of the Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini.  Read More ...  

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