ABC Bank Group Managing Director, Shamaz Savani with EAX Board Chair, Dr. Jendayi Frazer
The African Banking Corporation (ABC) has been under the spotlight over money laundering and fraud and helping criminals purchase arms for unstable countries.
As at now, the bank has refused to address the various issues that this blog has raised, raising eyebrows.
In July 2017 the National Intelligence Service (NIS) released what it referred to as a situational report, confirming that there were a lot of commercial bank's irregularities in Kenya.
In the report, the Savani owned Africa Banking Corporation was adversely mentioned as a hub for money laundering, nyakundireport.com can confirm.
The Savani family empire is allegedly built on money laundering and fraud, and their bookshop is mainly used to launder money from arms sale, and drugs.
A confidential exchange on August 4, between the Central Bank of Kenya and the United States Government with the subject: Bank Fraud & Money Laundering in the East African names ABC as a Kenyan bank that should be investigated for money laundering.
It also states that ABC is used by a “notorious” gun runner, Victor Butt, to launder money as well as buy small arms from the unstable countries like Somalia, South Sudan and Pakistan. Pakistan, sources at the Banking Fraud Unit (BFU) intimate, the money came through ABC bank.
In September 2015 the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) deemed five Mexican businesses “Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers,” froze each business’ assets and prohibited any U.S. company from doing business with them. All five businesses were found to have laundered money in order to provide financial support to Mexico’s Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generation, an international drug trafficking ring. Mizu Sushi was one of the five.
The success of a money laundering operation hinges largely on one action: getting the dirty money into the bank. Myers offers an example: “Let’s say I’m with a Mexican drug cartel. I have a lot of money from selling cocaine. So I want to take the cash from that illegal activity and turn it into clean money. So, I go out and buy a restaurant. Every day, I collect my restaurant receipts to take to the bank and make a daily deposit. But I also take a major portion of my drug proceeds and mix it in with my restaurant proceeds. Then, I make the deposit. Because I am doing this continually, and as long as the cash stays roughly within ten percent of the same amount every time, the bank won’t be as suspicious. Because you would expect a restaurant to have all that cash on hand. It looks like sales of food and alcohol.”
Same to the bookshop business the Savanis are using to launder proceeds of crime and that of their partners, then bribing Business Daily to say they are geniuses who started the business because of their love for the reading culture
Cnyakundi.com requests Kenyans to keep sending more information on ABC Bank fraud