The Financial Intelligence Unit has reported a 500 per cent increase in the monetary value of suspicious transactions and suspicious activity between 2016 and 2017 with the monetary value growing from $4.5 billion to $22.2 billion in the period under review.
Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi disclosed some of the data of the report for 2017 which he said Cabinet had approved to be laid in Parliament when it reconvenes in January.
In 2016, the report said there were 739 suspicious transaction reports. That figure grew to 877 in 2017.
It was the monetary value of the transactions which he said the public must take note of. The country’s budget, he said, was $55 billion and the level of suspicious transactions was $22.2 billion.
Al-Rawi said the FIU has 2,502 registrants from various sectors, including the banking and commercial sectors.
Of the 877 transactions, he said, 824 were completed transactions estimated at $8.4 billion while 53 interrupted transactions are believed to have amounted to $13.6 billion. He said, “the greatest number of reports stem from the banking sector and the money value transfer services.”
Of the cases, he said, 136 were suspected money laundering cases, 46 were for the financing of terrorism and of the number “140 were sent to local law enforcement agencies and 42 to foreign law enforcement.”
The transactions, he said, are related to “criminal associations, including gangs.”
Al-Rawi said the Government intended to “treat with the $22 billion of suspicious activity in the Trinidad and Tobago economy. We intend to lay in the Parliament an anti-corruption package which treats with mechanisms to treat with this scourge,” he said.
The legislative package, he said, includes stand-alone civil asset forfeiture provision and the way land is registered in T&T.
In addition, he said the report identified “politically exposed persons who have found themselves in the FIU matrix of suspicious activities.”
Asked what is a “politically exposed person,” he said, “it includes relatives lateral and vertical relations to persons who serve in public office,” those include mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, partners, et cetera.
“On politically exposed persons,” he said “there is anti-corruption work right now which the office of the AG and state entities are pursuing, this is an ongoing process.”
Al-Rawi said it was noteworthy that “we are treating with all allegations under current arrangements of government. There is no fear or favour, all allegations are being investigated, whether it is at the Port or elsewhere, it is being done in a fair approach by the relevant authorities.”
He urged the population to consider the growth in statistics from 2016 to 2017 saying “ it can be safely assumed that the figures are much larger as the FIU only effectively gains a snapshot and not a full gamut of reporting.”
The FIU, he said, deserves a public commendation for the kind of work that they have produced with the support of the ministries of Finance and National Security. This item will feature prominently on the Government’s agenda in the coming months.
In the new year when the legislative package is unveiled, he said, “the Opposition is to be carefully looked at in terms of their indication for support on legislation. We have not received support for amendments we bring.”
He said this was the first administration to have confronted active corruption by embarking on activities to follow money transferred outside of the country with the objective of retrieving the said money.