The Director of Policy and Research, Inter-Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa, GIABA, Mu'azu Umaru, stated that the nature of Ghana's sea borders has made maritime criminality a serious threat to security in the country.
According to him, money laundering through Ghana's sea borders has been at an increasing rate due to the porous nature of the borders.
He also said: "The porous nature of the maritime environment, the illegal fishing activities, the illegal movement and smuggling of goods across the length and breadth of the maritime environment of Ghana, and the fact that these activities require a lot of coordination and collaboration in dealing with some of these things, the ability of the country to work with other countries in the region to enhance its collaboration. These are all some of the issues we found."
He spoke to GhanaWeb on the sidelines of the validation workshop of a country-level report under the SWAIMS research criminality study in the Gulf Maritime of Guinea.
A speech delivered by Kwaku Dua, Chief Executive of the Financial Intelligence Centre noted that the issue of money laundering and Terrorist Financing(ML/TF), illicit financial flows, and Maritime Crime in the Gulf of Guinea continues to be a source of worry and concern as these activities pose serious threats to national peace and security.
He also stated that due to the security threats that these activities pose, "it has become very necessary to understand the methods and techniques used by the criminals to launder these proceeds to put in place mechanisms to deny these people from benefiting from these crimes."
Mr Dua however intimated tax evasion, trade-misinvoicing, piracy, robbery, drug trafficking, and human trafficking were identified as some of the most prevalent forms of maritime criminality.
