The Financial Intelligence Centre detected US$1.8 billion in suspected illicit financial flows in 2025, down from US$3.5 billion the year before, according to its eleventh Money Laundering Trends Report, reported by News Diggers on Tuesday 27 October and in more detail by Zambia Monitor on Wednesday 28 October. The Centre disseminated 786 intelligence reports to law enforcement during the year, 17.4 per cent fewer than the 951 of 2024.
Tax crime dominates the ledger. Of the 786 reports, 580 concerned suspected tax evasion, 192 money laundering and 12 other offences such as corruption and fraud. The Centre says the suspected tax crimes were largely linked to shell companies that received funds through local and international transfers or large cash deposits by foreign nationals, after which the money was withdrawn in cash or sent to Asia on the pretext of importing goods. The Centre received 6,136 suspicious transaction reports in 2025, News Diggers reports.
The K85 million case study
Zambia Monitor sets out one case study from the report. A company it calls Company A received K85 million between October 2024 and July 2025 and passed about K70 million of it to Company B, which went on to win public contracts including a vehicle supply contract worth about K150 million. The report describes Company B as primarily a shell company used to obtain a public contract. The report does not name either company, and no charges arising from the case are reported.
On corruption, the Centre's 2025 National Risk Assessment rates the threat of corruption-related money laundering as medium-high, down from very high, and the Centre disseminated six corruption cases in 2025 against ten in 2024. The report nonetheless says corruption "remains a significant financial crime threat", with effects on public finances and governance and a distorting effect on procurement. Nineteen reports concerned environmental crime, chiefly illegal timber and ivory trafficking. Only three fraud cases were disseminated, a figure the Centre itself says does not reflect the scale of the threat the risk assessment identified.
What came of it
The outcomes the report records are mostly on the tax side. The Zambia Revenue Authority raised assessments of more than K12.5 billion, including penalties and interest, on the back of the Centre's intelligence, Zambia Monitor reports; News Diggers gives the amount actually recovered by ZRA as more than K36.3 million. Law enforcement secured eight convictions, leading to the forfeiture of assets worth US$3.3 million, and advance income tax on remittances came to K485.1 million.
The fall in the headline figure, from US$3.5 billion to US$1.8 billion, is presented by both outlets as a decline in flows detected, not necessarily in flows that occurred; the report's own note that fraud is under-reported is a reminder of the difference. The Centre's reports are intelligence, not findings of guilt, and the cases it describes become public only if and when the agencies that receive them bring charges.
Sources: Zambia Monitor, “FIC flags 580 suspected tax evasion cases, as illicit financial flows hit $1.8 billion” (28 Oct 2026); News Diggers, “FIC records decline in illicit financial flows from $3.5bn to $1.8bn” (27 Oct 2026).