Murray
Michell
Murray Michell was the Director of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) from its establishment in 2001 till 2017, where he was responsible for overseeing the development of South Africa’s anti-money laundering and combating of terror financing framework. This involved developing the requisite reporting and compliance framework, as well as the FIC’s capability to identify the proceeds of crime and financial intelligence for use by the various law enforcement authorities and the revenue service. In this capacity Murray served on various governmental inter-agency committees.
He led the SA delegation to the international standards-setting body, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and its regional component, the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG). He also led the FIC’s involvement in the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, where he served as Chair in 2014.
Murray has been a speaker at numerous conferences and served on various international advisory committees and panels. This includes being a member of the United Nations Organisation on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Experts Group on Estimating Illicit Financial Flows (2011) and the UN Counter Terrorism Centre (UNCTC) Experts Group (2019). In 2018 Murray was appointed by President Ramaphosa as a member of the High Level Review Panel to investigate and develop recommendations for the transformation of South Africa’s State Security Agencies.
Currently, Murray is advising the Minister of Public Enterprises, Mr Pravin Gordhan, on restructuring state-owned enterprises in the wake of scandals of corruption and State Capture.
Prior to establishing the FIC, Murray was Special Advisor to the Minister of Finance (1996-2000).
Murray has a MSc in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London (1995).