GIABA Working Group on Typologies
Typologies Report on Cash Transcations and Cash Couriers in West Africa
- Senegal: GIABA, 2007. GIABA, 2007.
- 36p.
The geographical territory of West Africa is occupied by fifteen countries that make up the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS): Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote D’Ivoire, (The) Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Of these fifteen (15) countries, eight (8)belong to a common currency zone known as the Union Economique Monétaire de l’Afrique de l Ouest (UEMOA), which has common monetary regulations. The economy of the West Africa region is largely cash-based, characterised by a large and growing unregulated informal sector which is vulnerable to money laundering and terrorist financing.Cash transactions remain dominant in the West African region where payments for intra-regional transactions are usually made in either local or foreign currencies, specially the US dollar, the British pound and the Euro. In this context, economic operators, especially those in the informal sector, are engaged in the free exchange of currencies in the thriving parallel markets, for the purpose of making cash payments for intra-regional transactions.
Terrorism, Money laundering, Faking transactions, Banking secrecy, Corruption, Drug, Arms trafficking, Human traficking, Tax evasion, Fraud, Smuggling
