The recent money laundering bust by Financial Intelligence has been the news of the town for some time. Various reasons can be attributed to this. FIC has claimed involvement of top lawyers, legal professionals, politicians, government and even ministers in this money laundering scheme. Further, more than USD 1.5 billion worth of money is suspected to be involved in this scheme. On top of that, neither the government of any law making bodies were able to detect this mass money laundering scheme for such a long time.
As per the FIC, the investigation on money laundering has been going on for many years. However, they strengthened their investigation after more than 35,000 illegal cash transactions were linked with the corporate and individual bank accounts of the lawyers and legal counsellors who were in radar. Most of these lawyers and legal counsellors are either working with a big law firm or associated with top corporate officials and even government officials. Some of the top names in the list of money laundering lawyers as released by FIC include Masozi M. Banda and Sakwiba Sikota. Both these lawyers have been accused of laundering money more than USD 1 million. Masozi. M. Banda is the lawyer for Avic International. Sikota is the owner of Central Chambers, a law firm. However, Sikota is also known for his long-term relationship with the Ventriglias. The Ventriglias and an infamous family noted for their unethical practices, most notably the illegal takeover of the Portland Cement Zambia factory from Dr. Rajan Mahtani. It is no doubt that Sakwiba will be involved in such money laundering schemes.
The Financial Intelligence sources have further commented that this is not the exhaustive list and they will be sharing details of their further investigation soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment