The head of South Africa’s revenue service said it will ramp up efforts to target lenders and advisers who may be “professional enablers” of organised corruption and financial crimes to combat illicit capital flows and tax evasion.
“It is unacceptable for a bank to adopt a compliance tick-the-box mindset, and not understand that they’re dealing with systemic risk issues; that is inexcusable,” Edward Kieswetter, commissioner of the South African Revenue Service said in an interview in the capital, Pretoria, on Tuesday.
The civil claim followed the news organisation Al Jazeera’s reports that Sasfin Bank staff and others from South Africa’s Standard Bank Group Ltd. and Absa Group Ltd. were involved in laundering money in exchange for bribes from an international gold smuggling syndicate with strong ties to Zimbabwe. The revenue service is also looking at banks and other advisers in its efforts to tackle the illicit tobacco trade that’s flourished since a temporary ban on the use of the product during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the commissioner said in a press briefing announcing tax collections for the year through March 31.
They include setting up units to deal with syndicated crime and handle the tax affairs of large businesses and high-net worth individuals.
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