Tighter controls pay off as millions in undeclared cash seized
Dar es Salaam. The rise in the number of people found in possession of huge sums of undeclared cash as they attempt to leave the country is a result of concerted efforts to curb money laundering, according to analysts.
On February 27, Turkish national Yetkin Gen Mehmen – who works as a facilitation manager at Yap Merkez, the Turkish firm constructing Tanzania’s standard gauge railway - was fined Sh100 million or ordered to serve a three-year jail sentence after the Kisutu Resident’s Magistrate Court found him guilty of money laundering.
The court also ordered nationalisation of the $84,850 (Sh195 million) he was found to be in possession of at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam as he was preparing to leave the country.
Last week, a Cameroonian who reportedly came into the country as a tourist was found with $84,300 (Sh194 million) which he had failed to declare at the same airport.
A Ugandan national, Businge Winfred - who worked with the security firm SGA - was in February 2017 arrested as he was trying to leave the country with $1 million (about Sh2.3 billion) in undeclared cash.
There have been sporadic cases of the same nature in recent times.
In a similar incident, the government last month announced the nationalisation of properties worth over Sh70 billion, part of which was amassed through criminal means.
Sh12.3 billion was collected from accused persons who sought to secure their freedom through the plea-bargaining arrangements with the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Analysts say the trend reveals that, although the Act may be cited as the amended Anti-Money Laundering (Amendment) Act, 2012, has been there for some time, it is during the past few years that enforcement of the same gained momentum.
Although the law does not prohibit anyone to possess any amount of physical money, failure to declare the sum when leaving the country with it would often raise eyebrows.
“In such scenario, there would always be suspicion on the sources of such large amounts of cash…The issue here is why they failed to declare the money as per the law,” a Bank of Tanzania, who preferred not to be named, told The Citizen.
He added that Tanzania was adequately linked to the global networks of money transfers which foreign nationals could have used to remit the money to their respective accounts after getting the BoT clearance.
He was categorical however, that the country was aware of syndicates involved in illegal money transfers hence enhanced surveillance.
According to him, beneficiaries of BoT clearances for money transfers include importers and remittances to the colleges and hospitals with Tanzanian students or patients.
