Religious organisations becoming conduits for money laundering — FIC

Religious institutions are now being used as conduits for money laundering and terrorism financing - the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) has said.

Tithes, offerings and loans to the religious organisations are some of the ways through which people are said to be laundering proceeds of crime money.

A representative of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), Kofi Boakye, who disclosed this, said even though he could not immediately provide empirical facts to support the claim, just like other ways of money laundering nowadays, people were using various channels, and religious institutions had been found to be one of them, where people cleaned their dirty sources of money.

He has, therefore, called on religious leaders to know their members, do background checks, and, where they were not sure, consult them.

“A church may have a member who suddenly comes to join and has so much money and offers, even without request, to give the church a loan. The church also takes it because it is better to source the loan from inside than from other means. What we fail to do is to find out the source of wealth to be able to give to the church.

“This money could be an illicit source of wealth. So the member could ask that they are paid back in cheques, and these are some of the ways that money that was illicitly gained could channel its way through the banking system,” he explained.

"The FIC is there to receive reports mandatory on suspicious transactions and suspicious activities. You can refer them to us," he advised.

Mr Boakye said this yesterday in a media interview granted at the opening of a two-day national sensitisation seminar on anti-money laundering and Countering Financial Terrorism (AML/CFT) organised by ECOWAS' Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) and FIC for religious leaders and institutions.

GIABA

GIABA is a specialised institution of ECOWAS with the mandate to, among others, protect the economies of member states from the laundering of the proceeds of crimes and combat terrorism financing. 

Trust

Earlier in a speech delivered on behalf of the Director General of FIC, Mr Boakye said religious institutions often served as trusted anchors in communities across the country, and they had the unique capacity to influence values, promote accountability and mobilise collective action.

He said the United Nations recognised that religious leaders were key partners in preventing violent extremism, promoting peaceful coexistence and building resilient societies, and it was in acknowledgement of that vital role that GIABA and the FIC had organised the training to deepen awareness among religious bodies of their responsibilities in preventing money laundering, terrorist financing and to partner them in translating that awareness into action.

Quoting their 2024 National Religious Assessment Report, he said it indicated that Ghana continued to face medium-level threats from money laundering, and the major emerging vulnerabilities were in sectors such as real estate, non-profit organisations, virtual assets and natural resource funds.

He said as Ghana prepared for its next mutual evaluation, the government had committed to tightening oversight of high-risk sectors and ensuring Ghana remained aligned with international standards.

Illicit crime rising

Speaking on behalf of the Director General of GIABA, Timothy Melaye of the GIABA Secretariat, said there had been an increase in perpetration of illicit income-generating crimes such as corruption, kidnapping, human and drug trafficking in the sub-region over the years.

In addition to the high level of violent extremism and the obvious challenges associated with those vices, he said it was important for them to engage and utilise the tremendous influence of religious leaders in addressing some of the ills ravaging society.

He said in promoting peaceful coexistence, the voice of religious leaders must be strongly heard against those ills ravaging societies, especially violent extremism, terrorism, corruption, human trafficking, kidnapping and other predicate offences.

Moral duty

The Attorney-General, Dr Dominic Ayine, in a speech read on his behalf by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Yvonne Atakora Obuobisa, said combating money laundering and terrorist financing was not only a legal obligation but also a moral duty.

He, therefore, called on faith-based organisation leaders to let their institutions become bulwarks of integrity, not loopholes for exploitation.

In doing so, Dr Ayine said they would reinforce the moral and financial foundation of the country and contribute to the broader ECOWAS vision of peace, prosperity and rule of law.