The Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) has called on member states to give priority attention to the prosecution of illicit financial flows in order to tackle terrorism financing.

The Director-General of GIABA, Mr Edwin Harris, who made the call on Tuesday in Abuja, while briefing newsmen during the 2023 summit for Compliance Officers in West Africa, added that prioritising the prosecution of illicit financial flows will help tackle financial crime as well.

The 5-day event has the theme: “Intersection of technology and anti-money laundering, combating financing of terrorism and proliferation”.

According to him, while technology offers new ways to prevent crimes related to money laundering and counter-terrorism financing measures, it also presents challenges that should be tackled.

“New technologies for anti-money laundering must be developed and be deployed in a way that reflects threat and tackle such at any given opportunity.

“New technologies for anti-money laundering must be developed and implemented to reflect threat as an opportunity and show compatibility with international standards of data protection, privacy, and cyber security.

“We are going into asset recovery as a whole issue. We are providing support to competent authorities in terms of training and whatever logistic support we can give.

“GIABA will not come and arrest people in Nigeria or Liberia. It is the responsibility of member countries. All we do is to provide them with tools through training to enhance insight.

“I call on member states to take prosecution seriously because it is the main gain of our work.

“The more people are prosecuted and deterrence served, the less crime will be committed.”

Harris said the call became necessary because money laundering and terrorism financing “are global issues”, adding: “You cannot say you are strengthening Nigeria and leave Niger Republic out of it. If you do that you have done nothing.”

He underscored the need to initiate innovative ways by which countries could work together to achieve the desired objectives.

The director-general urged member states not to stop at just naming and shaming perpetrators but to ensure that they were prosecuted in line with extant laws.

Harris, therefore, urged all member states to take prosecution very seriously and move into asset recovery, in the bid to encourage compliance and take the profit out of crime.

“If we make crime profitable it will continue, so taking the profit out of crime is by seizing assets that we are getting illegally.

“We believe that in this era of rapid technological advancement, technology plays a major role in anti-money laundering and financing terrorism and proliferation compliance.

“This is also in terms of strengthening the safety of the global financial system, the pace of technology has continued to advance significantly in recent years, bringing with it, the hosts of technology.

“Among such are data analytics and machine learning which promise improved safety and analytic compliance, it is our commitment from GIABA to continue to strengthen our financial system.

“This is one way to bring compliance officers together.

“The arrangement is risk-associated so much that a compliance officer should know, where risks are and carry on due diligence in the system,” he added.

The summit was a platform for the participants to share experiences, and foster collaboration and cooperation in the use of technology to curb money laundering, terrorism financing, and its proliferation. (NAN)