The US Treasury announced the measurements against three ISIS operatives following the Isis Finance Group (CIFG) meeting.
It described the accused individuals as key terror financiers, who enable the activities of ISIS and its leaders across central, eastern and Southern Africa.
This comes as the country endeavors to fulfill the outstanding requirement of the Financial Action Task Force, which led to South Africa being grey-listed.
The US Treasury claims the identified ISIS operative serves critical links between far-flung ISIS operations, including ISIS-affiliated in the DRC, Mozambique, Somalia and ISIS cells in South Africa.
In February last year, South Africa was added to the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) greylist for weaknesses in combating money laundering.
Independent Economist, Ntombi Mbele-Thom says the latest terror financing national risk assessment shows the country’s risk profile from moderate to high.
“This really does put into question South Africa’s institutional safety as well as stability in being able to be on the lookout for these kinds of operatives and agents that are affiliated to ISIS firstly, but two, to ensure that there is no facilitation from a financing point of view that is enabling terror financing through banking institutions of even the physical movement of funds. So I do think that this is not something that is beneficial for South Africa.”
Legal expert and Attorney, Youshab Tayob says the South African government should seek more information and evidence from the US Treasury.
“Nobody has actually seen what they stand on as the evidence, you’ll recall that the terror list at some point held the names of a number of ANC activists who were deemed to be terrorists by the US standards and the whole world follows the US standard without asking questions. So the issue around it is that one we have not seen the evidence of these individuals allegedly being involved in what is called ISIS funding”
This week South Africa’s financial sector launched its draft market surveillance code of conduct aimed at addressing financial crime risks in the trading environment among other priorities.
--SABC--
