Libya’s Anti Financial Crimes, Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (AFCMLTF) agency reported yesterday that it had arrested and referred to the public prosecutor suspect ‘‘K.A.B’’ in possession of 409 bank cards issued by several Libyan commercial banks.
The suspect was also in possession of 41 raw magnetic cards prepared and equipped for use in electronic fraud operations, penetration of the bank data of the public of customers and robbery of their balances.
Money laundering via UAE and Turkey
The AFCMLTF said that this organized criminal method relies on the smuggling of these hard currency bank cards physically outside Libya to pirate their financial value and withdraw them in cash in the United Arab Emirates. This cash is then transferred to Turkey through parallel and hidden financial channels to camouflage and conceal the source of the funds and give them false legitimacy (money laundering), which constitute the crimes of foreign exchange smuggling and money laundering.
The AFCMLTF said the arrest thwarted a large-scale criminal scheme aimed at undermining Libya’s financial system and at depleting its foreign exchange. It said it is a severe security blow to transnational organized crime networks.
