Money Laundering: Cameroon Ranked Amongst Countries Under Heightened Surveillance

By Synthia Lateu

BUEA, June 28, 2023 – Cameroon has been included on the list of countries under increased surveillance in the fight against Money Laundering. According to the organization for the fight against Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the country with Croatia and Vietnam alongside 23 other nations have deficiencies in their regimes to combat these concerns, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The watchdog organization called on these regimes to complete their action plans quickly and within the agreed deadlines while acknowledging that these countries are “actively working with the organization (FTAF) to address them and are committed to resolving (them) quickly.”

The National Financial Investigation Agency and the National Anti-Corruption Commission in 2021 noted that the financial damage caused in Cameroon by the circulation of illicit financial flows linked with money laundering, finance of terrorism, and miscellaneous trafficking amounted to 135 billion FCFA. This represented an increase of 11 billion FCFA when compared to 2020 where losses were recorded at 124 billion FCFA.

The volume of illicit financial flows in the country reached 1869 billion FCFA from 2006 to 2021. The National Financial Investigation Agency's experts highlighted that the suspicious financial flaws are divided between tax and customs fraud (251 cases), embezzlement of public funds (10 cases), scamming (07 cases), forgery and use of forgery (11 cases), miscellaneous trafficking (35 cases).

In the ranking of the main vectors of money laundering in Cameroon according to the agency, banks (73.60% of suspicious declarations), money transfer operators (18.62%), Mobile Money which is in full expansion in the country (4.59%) and microfinance institutions (1.15%), EcoMatin reported.