Money laundering in Tanzania: legal and practical challenges

Money does not smell but the moral smell of money is concerned. At present, anti-money laundering measures have made it increasingly difficult the use of crime money that it may not infiltrate and corrupt the financial institutions. The threat of crime money has stimulated the establishment of laws and enforcement measures; however money launderers find still too many loop holes as a result the FATF secretariat issues annual report describing new methods of circumventing the anti-money laundering methods. Countries worldwide have agreed to cooperate in combating the money laundering though the magnitude of the risk brought by money crime depends to the attitude of the policy maker towards perpetuators and the kind of crime involved. Tanzanian policy and laws on anti-money laundering poses great challenges. The automatic denial of bail for money laundering charge, the unguided reporting requirement for professional is detrimental to professional ethics on privacy, confidentiality and loyalty, while the vagueness of the definition of money laundering justifies the prosecutor’s discretion on either charging the accused under the Penal Code or under the Anti- Money Laundering Act render the offence unbailable thus, runs afoul of fundamental rights under international law as it cannot be challenged under judicial review. Besides, challenges on anonymity remains intractable rendering the Ant money laundering law regime a nugatory. It is high time to revisit the rationale for inclusion of or non inclusion of predicate offences to prevent being used arbitrarily irrespective of the fact that the FATF recommendations found it useful. Thus, this article analyses the legal and practical challenges in combating money laundering and suggests solutions for strengthening the existing legal regime.