Fi­nan­cial crimes in­ves­ti­ga­tors and reg­u­la­tors re­ceived a boost to their on­go­ing ef­forts to de­tect, de­ter, and pros­e­cute fi­nan­cial crimes in T&T with the do­na­tion of spe­cialised equip­ment and the pro­vi­sion of ex­per­tise by the US Gov­ern­ment.Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Gary Grif­fith and Charg� d'Af­fairs of the US Em­bassy in Port of Spain Mar­garet Diop signed an agree­ment to launch the Fi­nan­cial Crimes Ad­vi­sor pro­gramme in T&T at a sign­ing and equip­ment han­dover cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

The US-T&T Fi­nan­cial Crimes Ad­vi­sor pro­gramme en­ables an ex­pe­ri­enced fi­nan­cial crimes in­ves­ti­ga­tor from the US De­part­ment of the Trea­sury's Of­fice of Tech­ni­cal As­sis­tance to men­tor the Po­lice Ser­vice's Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Branch (FIB), Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU), and T&T's pub­lic pros­e­cu­tors in their prepa­ra­tion of fi­nan­cial crime cas­es for pros­e­cu­tion.

he US Em­bassy al­so do­nat­ed US$38,000 worth of in­ves­tiga­tive equip­ment to the FIB and FIU. The equip­ment in­cludes sev­er­al mul­ti-cur­ren­cy dis­crim­i­na­tors which can de­tect coun­ter­feit cur­ren­cy, op­ti­cal char­ac­ter recog­ni­tion soft­ware to read scanned doc­u­ments, cam­eras for sur­veil­lance and ev­i­dence col­lec­tion, and com­put­er equip­ment. Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams and di­rec­tor of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit Su­san Fran­cois re­ceived the do­na­tions for their re­spec­tive agen­cies.

US charg� d'af­faires Mar­garet Diop said the pro­gramme would help com­bat mon­ey laun­der­ing and pre­vent funds from be­ing di­vert­ed to ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions. Grif­fith ex­pressed his sin­cere ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the con­tin­ued sup­port of the US Gov­ern­ment in ad­dress­ing crit­i­cal crime con­cerns fac­ing T&T. The fi­nan­cial crimes as­sis­tance pro­gramme is an ex­am­ple of the many ini­tia­tives fund­ed un­der the Caribbean Basin Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive launched by US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, dur­ing his vis­it to T&T in 2009.

In the first four years of the ini­tia­tive, the US Gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed more than US$263 mil­lion in fund­ing to the re­gion, pro­vid­ing sup­port to T&T and its Caribbean neigh­bours in an ef­fort to ad­vance pub­lic safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, re­duce il­lic­it traf­fick­ing, and pro­mote so­cial jus­tice.