The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has identified and blacklisted 30 people allegedly involved in illegal foreign currency trading using mobile phones and social media platforms.
The FIU instructed banks, mobile money operators and other financial service providers to identify and freeze any accounts operated by the blacklisted individuals and, further, to bar them from accessing financial services for a period of two years, with immediate effect.
“The FIU has also requested the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) to bar the said individuals from operating mobile phone lines,” said the FIU.
The development comes at a time there has been a notable widening of the gap between the official and parallel market exchange rates fuelled by excess liquidity in electronic money.
The Zimbabwe dollar is trading at ZWL$ 170/USD on the parallel market whereas the official rate as per the RBZ’s forex auction market trades at ZWL$ 86.9/USD.
“The FIU, in collaboration with law enforcement agencies, will continue to monitor various social media and bank accounts to identify and take action against perpetrators of illicit dealings. Over and above the corrective measures of barring the delinquent individuals from accessing banking and financial services and operating mobile phone lines, the FIU has forwarded their names and particulars to law enforcement agencies for prosecution,” said the FIU.
The names of the suspected foreign currency dealers are as follows;
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