KHARTOUM - (Sudan Tribune) The Director of the Financial Investigation Department at the Central Bank of Sudan (CBOS) Hayder Abbas Saturday said not a single case of terrorism financing has been traced in the country so far.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international agency on combating money laundering and terrorism financing, in 2015 removed Sudan from its blacklist, saying the east-African nation is no longer a threat to the integrity of the international financial system.
The then CBoS spokesperson Hazim Abdel Gader said the decision was the result of great efforts made by the CBOS and the other competent authorities during the past years.
Abbas, who addressed a workshop under the title “Strategic Planning to Prevent Money Laundering” Saturday in Khartoum, said his country “didn’t detect any terrorism financing case until now”.
He pointed that Sudan has developed a system that is “adequately protected against money laundering or terrorist financing operations”, saying the country is preparing for the assessment phase by the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF) in 2022.
Sudan is a member of the MENAFATF which is a regional group tasked with implementing the recommendations of the FATF on combating money laundering and financing of terrorism and proliferation.
For her part, the director of the banking supervision department at the CBOS Asma Khairi said “there are 8 suspected cases of money laundering in the banking sector until August 2016”, acknowledging the implementation of anti-money laundering and terrorist financing legislations is ineffective.
Sudanese parliament adopted in June 2014 a law to combat money laundering and terrorism financing that contained articles related to consolidating investigations and financial intelligence which is the enforcement mechanism that receives notifications and information from financial institutions and other parties.
Sudan was placed on the U.S. terrorism list in 1993 over allegations it was harbouring Islamist militants working against regional and international targets.