ORGANISED CRIMES & THE LAW: A Comparative Study on Combating Money Laundering in Nigeria, India and Germany

and unpredictability in the law had it not been for the supplementary statutes. 2.1.3 Germany The German AML Regime is premised on Section 261 of the Criminal Code (Money Laundering; Disguising of Illegal Assets). It categorically identifies only 4 specific types of crimes as the money laundering predicate offences namely;17 i) all major crimes (Verbrechen), i.e. all offences carrying a minimum of one year's imprisonment such as human trafficking; ii) all less serious crimes (Vergehen) of illegal trade in narcotics and precursors;18 iii) certain Vergehen involving property, fraud, document and corruption offences committed on a commercial basis by a member of a gang formed for recurrent commission of such offences; and iv) all Vergehen committed by a member of a criminal association within the meaning of Section 129 of the Criminal Code such as gambling. The author is of the opinion that this approach of clearly listing which exact criminal activities constitute predicate offences has both pros and cons. The major advantage is that it enhances predictability in the law by eliminating ambiguity and uncertainty, while the main disadvantage is that the scope of the AML Regime is relatively narrowed resulting in some probable money laundering activities go unpunished. However, repeated national surveys have shown that though the number charges generated on these predicate
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offences has been relatively small (average 20 annually), the rate of convictions has been almost 100%.19 Therefore, the author is of the view that Germanys approach on predicate offences is the best of the three because prosecution of economic crimes is very expensive; therefore, it must be about successful prosecutions and not so many cases that end unsuccessfully. 2.2 Suspicious Transaction Reporting and Other Reporting(s) By norm and practice, the Commercial Crimes Units of each country are empowered to receive suspicious transaction reports (STRs) and other types of reports on behalf of the prosecution authorities. In conformity with their respective legal systems, different countries define STRs differently. Some adopt a wider definition than others. Consequently, for those with narrow definitions, the obligation to generate STRs is circumscribed as those reports only arises if the offence suspected is a money laundering predicate offence. The same applies to the proscription of bank secrecy rules and lawyer/client confidentiality. The rules only fall away if money laundering predicate offence is involved. 2.2.1 Nigeria Due to its wider view of money laundering to cover laundering of proceeds of all crimes, Nigerias AML Regime has widened the latitude of matters to be reported. In Nigeria every suspicious transaction must be reported regardless of whether it involves laundering of proceeds of a crime or not.20Incidental to this, the Nigerian AML Regime has four philosophies underlying its
Per German Criminologist, Michael Kilchling quoted by P. Reuter and E. M. Truman, Combating Predicate Crimes Involved in Money Laundering in Chasing Dirty Money: The Fight Against Money Laundering (2004) IIE Publications, Washington D.C, 105, at 118. 20 See R. Ezeani, op cit, 9.
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The European Commission, Money Laundering: How to Improve EU Rules for Prevention in Europa Internal Market, Single Market News (October 1998) Special Feature No. 14, 2. Copies of the report are available via the DG XV's website: http://ec.europa.eu/dg15 accessed on 28 September 2009. 18 Sentence No 1 of Section 29(1), the Narcotics Act (Betubungsmittelgesetz) or Section 29(1) of the Commodities Control Act (Grundstoffberwachungsgesetz)

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