White-collar crime gobbles millions

Mujuru’s office Sylvester Nguni called for a comprehensive approach by law enforcement agents and the corporate world to deal with the scourge.
“Combating white-collar criminal activity requires an overhaul of our systems and to keep pace with world trends in crime prevention,” said Minister Nguni.
“The trend worldwide in fighting white collar crime and money laundering in particular is to set up a central financial intelligence centre which receives classified information routinely on the basis of suspicion from financial sector, accountants, the corporate world and Government departments, among other sources.”
Prisons, Minister Nguni said, constituted mostly blue-collar criminals mainly because white-collar crimes were committed by people in positions of trust and high social status.
Minister Nguni said the Global Financial Integrity indicated that Zimbabwe had an average cumulative loss of US$515 million per year due to white collar crime.
He said the country had a total outflow of US$4,125 billion between 2000 and 2008 through illicit financial transactions.
Minister Nguni said the illegal flow of money from Zimbabwe had dire effects on the economy, including a decline in hard currency reserves, tax revenues and investment inflows.
He said this would affect Zimbabwe’s chances of meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
President of White Collar Crime 101 Fraud Aware USA, Mr Peter Goldman said according to major accounting firms and professional examiners, fraud costs the world US$41 trillion a year.
“Business losses due to fraud increased by 20 percent in the last 12 months from US$1,4 million to US$1,7 million per billion dollars of sale,” he said.