BOT FINALLY ANNULS FBME’S BANKING LICENSE

In Summary

This means that FBME – which was blacklisted on allegations of being a foreign financial institution of primary money laundering concern’ by the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes 

Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in 2014 – will now not be allowed to undertake banking activities in Tanzania.

Dar es Salaam. The Bank of Tanzania (BoT) has officially annulled FBME’s banking license and placed the financial institution under its statutory management.

This means that FBME – which was blacklisted on allegations of being a foreign financial institution of primary money laundering concern’ by the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in 2014 – will now not be allowed to undertake banking activities in Tanzania.

“The BoT is terminating FBME’s banking activities in Tanzania. It is annulling the license for FBME Bank; placing it under receivership and appoints the Deposit Insurance Board (DIB) as the receivership manager,” the BoT says in its statement.

BoT's decision means that people who hold accounts with FBME will now be required to visit the DIB for details on how they can receive part of their money.

In 2014, the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) named FBME ‘a foreign financial institution of primary money laundering concern’, sparking a protracted legal battle between the two parties.

On March 25, 2016, the FinCEN issued its final ruling, confirming the Dar es Salaam-headquartered FBME – which also maintains a representative office in Moscow and reportedly owned by two Lebanese brothers – as an institution of "primary money laundering concern.”

And on April 14, 2017, a US district court judge in Washington, DC ruled in favour of FinCEN.

The ruling put FBME out of business after the court got convinced that through its Cyprus branch, FBME has been conducting money laundering projects with close links to a failed Indonesian bank, the Russian Mafia, the Lebanon-based Shi’a Islamist group Hezbollah and al Qaeda among others.

The Citizen