Judiciary Warns Of The Danger Of Currency Smuggling
November 28, 2024 Baghdad/Al-Masala: The Supreme Judicial Council warned, on Thursday, of the danger of currency smuggling and its harm to the national economy and development, while revealing the latest methods of currency smuggling and how to pursue it.
The judge of the Integrity and Money Laundering Investigation Court, Iyad Mohsen Damd, said in a statement to Al-Qada newspaper, “Currency smuggling is one of the crimes that has economic and social impacts, most notably harming the national economy by taking hard currency out of the country and pushing it into circulation in the economic market of other countries.”
In light of the technical and technological developments that the world is witnessing, as Damd points out, “currency smugglers have developed their means and methods of smuggling money, and one of the most recent methods that we have been presented with in practical reality is smuggling currency through prepaid electronic payment cards,
where the accused agrees with ordinary citizens to issue payment cards in their names in exchange for small amounts that he gives them, then he fills the cards, carries them and takes them out of the country through airports, and then withdraws the amounts in cash through ATMs in the countries to which he travels.”
Among the methods of smuggling money, Damd stated that “some criminals resort to the currency sales window at the Central Bank of Iraq to buy dollars, and then transfer the money to foreign bank accounts under the pretext of importing goods without there being a real import operation.”
Regarding the legal procedures, he pointed out that “the courts currently consider currency smuggling crimes in accordance with the provisions of Resolution 58 of 1982, the penalty for which is life imprisonment, and sometimes it is adapted according to Article 43 of the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Law No. 39 of 2015, which is a misdemeanor, and the decisive factor in determining the penalty is the circumstances and facts of the case.”
The judge in charge of combating money laundering stated that “there are legal procedures represented by the enactment of laws that require combating currency smuggling and impose deterrent penalties on perpetrators, and there are institutional procedures represented by the formation of security and intelligence agencies concerned with combating this crime, arresting its perpetrators, and presenting cases before investigating judges.”
Regarding the obstacles facing the pursuit of currency smugglers, he stated that “the obstacles are represented by the difficulty of tracking and uncovering some of the smugglers’ methods, especially when they use modern methods and advanced technologies. Another obstacle is the fact that the crime is organized and is committed by transnational gangs. It is known that transnational crimes are complex and difficult to track and trace in terms of inspection, arrest and prosecution procedures.”
Regarding technological progress and its impact on increasing or reducing these crimes, the judge described technological development as “a double-edged sword, as criminals can exploit it to develop methods of currency smuggling, speed it up, and complicate the procedures for tracking it.
On the other hand, the competent authorities can benefit from it by combating the crime of currency smuggling by developing inspection and inspection devices at airports, as well as by developing systems to combat money laundering and currency smuggling, and by using technology to activate the due diligence procedures that must be followed to reduce the danger and extent of currency smuggling.”
For his part, the judge of the Third Karkh Investigation Court, Muhammad Khalid Jiyad, revealed “other modern methods used in currency smuggling and money laundering operations, which are represented by importing goods from neighboring countries through fictitious deals or attaching forged invoices in which prices are inflated to high levels or through (K-Card) cards.”
Jihad explained that “currency smugglers collect a large number of Key Cards and Visa Cards after filling them with national currencies and traveling with them outside Iraq and withdrawing the amounts deposited in them in dollars or by purchasing electronic game cards from the Internet in dollars, as well as through drug and weapons trade and oil smuggling.”
He explained that “traders and importers evade legal accountability by importing under fictitious names, as most of them are not registered for taxes or do not possess an import certificate that originally allows them to conduct commercial exchange.”
He warned of “the danger of currency smuggling, which causes economic inflation by doubling or more the prices of goods,” indicating that “these crimes have led to the instability of the country’s economic situation, the fluctuation of the exchange rate of foreign currencies against the value of the Iraqi dinar, and the spread of poverty, classism, and ignorance in society.”
“The biggest obstacle facing the concerned authorities in pursuing foreign currency smugglers is the fact that the ownership of the dollar is restricted to a certain group or parties that control the devaluation or increase of the local currency against the dollar, which has created a kind of dominance and monopoly supported by an umbrella and official decisions,”
Jiyad continued, noting that “the financial policy has failed to achieve stability in the exchange rate of the dinar against the dollar, in addition to the difficulty of uncovering people who launder money and smuggle hard currencies, as this type of crime is covered by a commercial nature.”
He pointed out that “one of the reasons for not controlling smuggling is the border crossings that are not controlled by the General Authority of Customs, as well as the presence of some smugglers outside Iraq and of different nationalities, which makes it difficult to reach them and hand them over to the Iraqi state due to international law, as the handing over of smugglers is according to the principle of reciprocity and extradition agreements between countries.”
Regarding the measures taken to confront currency smugglers, he stated that “the Central Bank of Iraq plays an important role through its policies, so a special policy must be set for the bank and translated according to instructions and controls and applied to all banks and financial institutions strictly, in addition to the special oversight that is represented by practicing auditing procedures related to oversight of financial institutions.”
