Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

Money laundering is defined as a process that allows the reinjection into the legal economy of profits derived from serious behaviour prohibited by the legislator.Terrorist financing occurs when profits, whether illicit or not, are used to finance an act intended to intimidate a population or to compel a government or an international organisation to perform or refrain from performing any act.Following the attacks in New York, those in Brussels, Grand Bassam in Cte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso after those in Paris, and recurrently in Mali, testify to the relevance of the phenomenon and the links between terrorism and other forms of criminality (Corruption, Terrorism and drug trafficking, organised crime, prosecution of major criminals for minor offences, Identity forgery and violations of immigration law) which are described by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime or UNODC.The FATF thus advocates a global approach to the fight against these phenomena.Member countries of the WAEMU space are adopting, with some success, this approach and other ways of fighting.