Update: Law, accounting and motor firms filed just three suspicious-transaction reports all year, Transparency International Zambia warns

Update: Earlier coverage reported the Financial Intelligence Centre's 2025 figures. New since then: Transparency International Zambia says the fall in reports does not mean corruption has fallen, and that three high-risk sectors filed only three reports between them. Transparency International Zambia (TI-Z) has warned that a fall in corruption and fraud reports from the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) should not be read as a fall in corruption, and has singled out law firms, accounting firms and motor firms for filing almost nothing. Executive Director Maurice Nyambe said in a statement on Thursday that the three groups together filed only three suspicious transaction reports during the year, even though several studies show a high risk of illicit transactions in those sub-sectors. The statement is TI-Z's preliminary analysis of the FIC's 2025 Trends Report. Mr Nyambe said the decline in corruption and fraud intelligence results from fewer suspicious reports being received and analysed. It "does not imply that corruption has declined", he said. ## What the report shows The FIC's 11th money laundering trends report says banks filed 6,136 suspicious transaction reports in 2025, down 31.7% from 8,981 in 2024. The Centre passed 786 intelligence reports to investigators, of which 580 concerned suspected tax crimes and 192 suspected money laundering. A suspicious transaction report is the first alarm in the system. Banks and other named businesses must tell the FIC when a payment looks wrong, and the FIC analyses it and passes what it finds to investigators. ## Background The Anti-Corruption Commission has said it received six cases arising from the FIC's 2025 report. One, involving K2 million meant for school feeding, led to the arrest of five people, including a district education board secretary and bank officials. Those allegations have not been proven in court. The FIC has also been looking at minerals. Director General Clement Kapalu has said that betwe