 All right, welcome back. That's from the ASIS 2023, some of the highlights there. Moving on, banks as gatekeepers to the financial system battle unseasonally against money laundering and terrorist financing. But national anti-money laundering effort focused primarily on domestic risk. And as a result, often they seem to lack. I have International Finance and Economic Analyst, Mokhtar Mohamed joining me now in this discourse. Many thanks for joining me, Mokhtar, on Business Insights. Thank you, Justin. Yes, it is indeed my pleasure. Let's talk about this money laundering and specifically what risk they pose to the stability of the financial sector, because we know we have a law, the anti-money laundering law and all of that. But over time, it's as though the effort we are doing back here at home is just like a scratch in the surface. How do you react? I totally agree with you. When you do anything that has to do with money laundering, sometimes it's external, it's collaboration between various nations that bring it to success, because when you talk about money laundering, some of those funds are not within your system, they're coming outside your system, either to fund terrorism, either from drug traffickers trying to invest in your economy. So it's sometimes not something that you have control over. The domestic one, even if you look at Nigeria, we've not even have control over that, because when you talk about the domestic one, you're talking about even exchange rates. So the CBNC, they are going to clamp down on some illegal fund that have found their way and some people are busy having illegal money, illegal burudic change in terms of cross-border funding. So it's more or less a cross-border thing. So it has to be a comprehensive situation whereby country collaborates. And I think that collaboration has been going on for a while now, but maybe the desired result has not been achieved with everybody's expert, but I think it's still working in progress, especially when you look at our country in Nigeria before now, you have a lot of these issues coming up, but of recent, what we've seen, we've seen a clamp down, we've seen a reduction in some of these crimes, especially if the anti-money, anti-money London agency that we have in the country, the EFCC and the ICPC really on top of the game. Yeah, fine, you have said that indeed, we need to collaborate with the international organizations and of course other countries across the continent and of course globally to achieve all of that. But over time, let's look at the activities of the central bank of Nigeria. Most of the times, there are always red flags and them checks by commercial banks. Sometimes when you deposit some money, the banks would actually hold for it and put like a restriction to it, and when the sources or the origins of those funds are actually suspicious. But sometimes it's as though there are some bad acts in the system who actually help this particular crimes to foster, because I see most people, sometimes they talk about how people use their accounts to perpetrate crime and then the banks are in the know. What can we do about this particular issues that arise often time? I think that has to do with the financial authorities. Like you said, most of crimes, financial crimes, we do always see this as an insider. It's not something that is done, they're always in contact and some of the scatters are right inside the financial systems. That's why they are able to succeed. You talk about red flag and you realize that Nigeria is one country that have not really put so much emphasis on trying to tackle the red flag issues, because ordinary when you have deposit one million, let me give you an example. In some states, let me use the United States of America. If your account is always, maybe you always have like $1,000, $2,000, maximum you have $5,000, then immediately all of a sudden the street, even $6,000 or $7,000, they raise the flag. You say, you know what, that means there's a challenge here. What's happening here? You need to investigate, you need to investigate. And when it comes to investigation sometime in Nigeria, it takes forever. I mean, when you have blocked your money, you have to write letters and that, no. When they say they want to investigate within 48 hours, they're able to come up with a solution that this is what's happening, this is what's happening and then they apply the big stick if there's any need for that. Although Nigeria will have such policy, but like you said, there's always an insider convention because we have some accounts in Nigeria that you're not supposed to have maximum of $2,000, $200,000, by the time it gets above that, by being one Naira, it's supposed to be a red flag. But you see that some of the financial frauds are committed to these accounts, maybe they put in $200,000 and $250,000, the authority that's supposed to be on a looked analysis, before they transfer this money to other accounts and so they keep on transferring, moving these funds in a run banking space, the financial space and nobody seems to stop them. I think it's well done too. We have not been able to put our feet down and apply the law when it's necessary. When I keep saying that Nigeria is not deeper of any law, what we have is that not being able to implement or when needs to be implemented, they find the penalty that comes with such issues in the system. All right, over time the International Monetary Fund has actually identified countries who actually put a potential high risk into these fraudulent transactions. But let's bring it closer home. We've had over time the perpetration of light arms ammunition. Over time you see people dealing in arms and ammunition and over time the proceeds still seem to find their way into banks. But just how? I know we've talked about the anti-monetary laws and everything, but just what more can be done to actually follow this money specifically for items which are not really so, so, so certain as per their origin really, because I'm really bothered about the issue of proliferation of arms and ammunition into the country and integrated ease on the high. We'll see all of them, these terrorists that have been, you know, these arms and they have funds that, which are actually being moved all over the country without even going through the banking system. But somehow they still find themselves or this money still find themselves back into the system. I think the security apparatus also a couple of people in this area, then the judiciary also, fortunately I'm bringing them in also and also the economic and financial commission also. The, you know, forgetting Nigerian financial intelligence unit also. We have all these units too. They are supposed to be the ones that should be upped up their game because when I say that is because, when I say the judiciary, because we've not seen people being sentenced to jail for financial crime, especially money laundering. We've had a lot of cases before now, the former CBN gov knows too though that they're investigating some period of change even in the former national security advisor. But a lot of the period of change that were involved in the state form terrorism and that no justice have come out from that. Rather, seeing them, country like United Arab Emirates sending Nigerians that they fed are financing terrorism via Nigeria, sending them to jail over there in Saudi Arabia rather than Nigeria sending them to jail. So it all boils down to the legal system or maybe the way we've been able to handle issues we've not been able to handle it professionally or we've not been able to get the legal side of it for justice to be served. And that is one. And then two, you cannot write of the financial institution also. They have also been copied because of maybe the pressure in trying to make sure that they meet up to share orders and demands and all that. So that also is a major challenge. So definitely I think it boils down to the security agencies because like they said, some of these funds are not spirited, they come in and they find they are going to the banking space. Some of them come through the border even, you see a lot, some of them can even come to the seaport, some of them come to the airport. We'll see where security agencies have intercepted money. But unfortunately, local money, they already intercepted. We've not seen anybody say, oh, some foreigners were trying to bring in funds into the country to tons of millions of dollars and they were stopped. So it's something that you need to do. And then when you are coming into our countries, in other countries, you see, if you have a book, it's a month, that book is a month, you have to declare it. And if you don't declare it, if it is found on you, that will be confiscated. But we don't see that when it comes to Nigeria, we just see people just coming to declare their funds and they are not allowed, because it's not the only way to declare those from the other countries. You are asked to go and fill up a form to say, okay, you brought into someone and then by that they will be able to monitor how you spend this money. But either you are brought in for other activities that are not legal. All right, I'm actually bothered about the issue of KYC. I think it comes to play in all of this. And recently, the central bank of Nigeria has been hammering on it about how the banks should actually play so highly on the issue of KYC and of course social media of some of their customers. Because sometimes, sometimes, I think it's the boys down to that because the banks themselves, that's the commercial banks, they don't really do their due diligence to understand what exactly their customers do. Because some of this money laundries as it were find successes by using local businesses and pumping money to them and they say they are selling gold and doing all sorts of transaction. But at the end of the day, they're just laundering money for these unscrupulous people from cross-border. How far can we go with KYC? Yeah, I think KYC works. If the banks are ready to make it work, we don't, these days we have VPNs. So it's always, like I said, it's just because we don't want to work because the VPN is also there. You could monitor our funds on them, but you talk about KYC, that's very important. But in Nigeria, the banks' staffs are also under pressure to perform, to bring in money into their banks to make sure they get promoted. So they don't seem to do due diligence, they just want the fund in there and so that they will be here. And it's like, it's only in Nigeria, it's just somebody rightly pointed out there's no history of high status gold business. Somebody tells you that at the point it was an Okada rider riding back, then all of a sudden his building house is in Banana Island, he's having security apparatus to guide him all around town and nobody seems to be seeing anything, nobody seems to have a due diligence. In order to develop society, they will go ride the panseptical. There must be a precedent of how you made your money. You can't just wake up overnight and say, you are trading on gold and that also has to do with the bank, but again, I think the security agency because sometimes this will flaunt this wealth and unfortunately the security agency, the politician tend to celebrate this. You remember issues whereby it's senior special assistant to a governor flaunted so much wealth. And I mean, he was a senior special assistant to the governor and then he went to the U.S. and he was arrested for financial crime. And today he's been sentenced to jail in the U.S. But if it is in Nigeria and the reason the U.S. in the U.N. was that they feel that it's a political rig that if it gets to Nigeria it will not have justice. So you see what I talk about the justice system and I talk about customers' pressure. I mean, banks starve or pressurize to get customers and then again, we don't follow due diligence and we celebrate mediocrity. Justin, you are working in the station now. All of a sudden Justin owns a station and nobody's asking how come, who are his partners? How did he get? It's okay for him to own the station because he's a professional. He could have got everything ready and then own the station. You need to look at his funding. How did he get his funding? Today the CBN is busy saying that they don't fund the Birode change. But we have seen that a lot of Birode change still have this effect. How do they get this effect? So those are issues that the financial institution need to deal with, not just the financial institution, the CBN also. But most of the people I think the security agency because in most developed economy those that goes after the people are the security agency working hand in hand through the banks. All right, I will must say a very big thank you to you. We have been speaking with Muqtah, Mohammed International Finance and Economic Analyst, and we have been looking at the issue of money laundering and of course some cross-border crimes and the impact on the financial system. Well, many thanks for being a part of the show, Muqtah. I pleasure Justin, still have a pleasant day. And you too. Well, that's the size of the show that as much as we can take on the show for today's business inside to return to your screens tomorrow, same time. I am Justin, academia. Many thanks for being a part of the show. Bye for now.