Business
Chinese Firm Violates Money Laundering Laws
By Business Times 1/10/20
Oct 2, 2020 - 1:37:17 PM

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has penalised a Chinese brick manufacturing firm, Silver Dragon, for violating Section 11 of the Bank Use Promotions Act which seeks to stem money laundering.

Under the Act, the company was supposed to make disclosures or submit cash sales and deposits of each previous week business transactions.

Silver Dragon is alleged to have failed or neglected to submit such returns from June 30 to September 1, 2020, to the RBZ for 42 days after subtracting Sundays and public holidays.

Silver Dragon Bricks director Miaoqi Liu told Business Times that they have engaged the central bank on the matter. Liu said:

We were fined and we are in the process of communicating with the RBZ on the disclosure issues.

The RBZ has in the recent past been putting in place strict measures in a bid to curb externalisation of funds amid reports that close to US$1bn has so far been siphoned out of the country since the dollarisation of the country’s economy in 2009.

In 2018, the government published a list of over 1 800 companies and individuals alleged to have externalised more than US$800m.

The Silver Dragon case will bring the spotlight on Chinese firms that have for long been accused of externalisation of cash they should be banking in Zimbabwe.