The authority to prosecute money laundering crimes in Nigeria rests with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The Commission is empowered to investigate and prosecute financial crimes/money laundering related activities.[10]
The principal legislation overseeing Anti-money Laundering compliance in Nigeria is the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022. Section 18 (2) of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022 defines money laundering offences to include:
“Any person or body corporate, in or outside Nigeria, who directly or indirectly— conceals or disguises the origin of, converts or transfers, removes from the jurisdiction, or acquires, uses, retains or takes possession or control of any fund or property, intentionally, knowingly or reasonably ought to have known that such fund or property is, or forms part of the proceeds of an unlawful act, commits an offence of money laundering under this Act.”
Subsections (3) and (4) go on to state the penalties for individuals and natural corporations:
“A person who contravenes the provisions of subsection (2) is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than four years but not more than fourteen years or a fine not less than five times the value of the proceeds of the crime or both.”
“A body corporate who contravenes the provisions of subsection (2) is liable on conviction to a fine of not less than five times the value of the funds or the properties acquired as a result of the offence committed.”
As part of the insurance industry’s efforts to eliminate money laundering and counter terrorism financing, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) set up an AML and counter-terrorism (CTF) compliance unit to stamp out money laundering in the insurance industry.
This unit was set up with the mandate to ensure that the insurance industry’s operations were not misused for illegal purposes.
In line with this objective, the NAICOM also enacted the National Insurance Commission (Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism) Regulations 2013.
These regulations apply to all insurance institutions in Nigeria including their agents, insurance brokers and to all insurance transactions.[11]
Highlights of these regulations include:
- Setting up of Customer Due Diligence frameworks by insurance institutions in other to know the identities of the customers they are transacting with. [12]
- Identifying suspicious transactions as defined under the regulations.[13]
- Establishing internal control measures to carry out an independent review of the insurance institutions’ AML/CFT framework.[14]