Into Africa

Money laundering is all about fake respectability, transforming the seedy and ill-gotten into the legitimate and well-earned; so in Africa, where better to launder criminal money than through the continent’s most developed economy, South Africa. Richard Hurst reports from Johannesburg.

According to Mike Savage, partner at Ernst & Young South Africa, the biggest problem facing African governments that are serious about tackling money laundering is to pinpoint the movement of funds that transit the continent’s porous borders. He explains: “In most instances money laundering in our region will entail either getting money into or out of a country.”