Aleem Khan

Trinidad and To­ba­go is at risk of be­ing black­list­ed by the in­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force (FATF) if by 2014 it con­tin­ues to fail to pros­e­cute any­one un­der an­ti-mon­ey laun­der­ing or com­bat­ing the fi­nanc­ing of ter­ror­ism (AML-CFT) laws. So said at­tor­ney and Cer­ti­fied An­ti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Spe­cial­ist David West at a sem­i­nar at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day. Speak­ing at the event or­gan­ised by the Anoint­ed Pro­fes­sion­als Ex­hibit­ing Ex­cel­lence (APEX), West said, "Come 2014, some­body is go­ing to have to be charged."

He ex­plained that "in 2010 there were $263 mil­lion worth of Sus­pi­cious Ac­tiv­i­ty Re­ports (SARs); in 2011, there were $569 mil­lion worth of SARs; that's $832 mil­lion worth of SARs and there have been no pros­e­cu­tions." How­ev­er, the sit­u­a­tion is even more alarm­ing for the first half of 2012 where al­ready, $500.47 mil­lion of SARs have been re­port­ed.

Kei­th King, CEO and chair­man of First­line Se­cu­ri­ties who al­so spoke, lat­er com­pound­ed West's fig­ures say­ing SARs and Sus­pi­cious Trans­ac­tion Re­ports (STRs) to­talled 303 in 2011, up from 111 in 2010. King said SARs and STRs to­talled $304.1 mil­lion in dol­lar terms in 2011, up from $85.7 mil­lion in 2010.

"This rep­re­sents a 172 per cent in­crease in the amount of SARs/STRs and a 254.84-per cent in­crease in dol­lar terms (or) val­ue of the re­ports," King told the au­di­ence which in­clud­ed fi­nan­cial ad­vis­ers, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and at­tor­neys.

'T&T?not ready for 4th round eval­u­a­tion'

On one of his pow­er­point slides, King showed at­ten­dees that at the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU), "121 sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty trans­ac­tions/ac­tiv­i­ty re­ports were re­ceived and dis­sem­i­nat­ed be­tween Jan­u­ary and June 2012. To­tal val­ue of the SARs/STRs for the first half of 2012 is $500.47 mil­lion."

He said that "on­ly half of the year has gone by and we have al­ready sur­passed 2011," and lat­er added that very few cas­es have led to pros­e­cu­tions or con­vic­tions. He cit­ed the on­ly two to the best of his knowl­edge to be the Pi­ar­co air­port cor­rup­tion case and the Vicky Boodram case.

Speak­ing af­ter Fi­nan­cial ad­vis­er Roger Her­nan­dez of the Caribbean Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force (CFATF), who was tight-lipped about the re­sults of the 3rd Round of Mu­tu­al Eval­u­a­tion Re­ports, West said that in­de­pen­dent­ly of the re­sults from the 3rd Round, "Trinidad and To­ba­go is not ready for the 4th Round of Mu­tu­al Eval­u­a­tion Re­ports."

The eval­u­a­tion re­port pro­vides a sum­ma­ry of the AML-CFT mea­sures in place in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and in­flu­ences whether the coun­try stays on the grey list, moves to the white list or falls to the black list. There are 12 pieces of leg­is­la­tion deal­ing with AML-CFT and the coun­try has wit­nessed "amend­ment af­ter amend­ment," West said. "How do we ex­pect peo­ple to catch up and know what to fol­low?" he asked rhetor­i­cal­ly.

He said it was his view that T&T needs more suit­ably qual­i­fied peo­ple to draft the laws be­cause the cur­rent drafts­peo­ple "are lim­it­ed in what they know" and lack the spe­cialised train­ing nec­es­sary.