T&T is open for business for dirty money and anybody in the business of financing terrorism will make this country the conduit for the movement of illicit funds.Making T&T its source, according to Minister of Agriculture Senator Clarence Rambharat, is easy because there are no severe restrictions on the receipt of cash in the banking system as in many other countries where institutions must report receipts from certain places and people.
Rambharat said he believes there is a “low fence” in T&T.
“We have a low fence without regulations and reporting…then it is open for business and anybody in the business of terrorist financing will step over the fence.”
“Not necessarily to do damage here but to clean up and make Trinidad the source of their deposit that moves into another place…merely a conduit for the movement of terrorist funds and that is what it is,” he said.
Rambharat was speaking in the Senate yesterday during the debate on the Miscellaneous Provisions (Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, Process of Crime, Financial Intelligence Unit of Trinidad and Tobago (FIUTT), Customs and Exchange Control) Bill, 2017.He said that he believes that T&T is not convinced that “terrorism affects us” and in seeking to bring about that conviction, Rambharat said the reports coming out of the Financial Intelligence Unit of T&T and other agencies suggests that there is evidence in the financial system of terrorism funds making its way through the country.
In giving an example of dirty money, Rambharat drew close reference to the opening of casinos on almost every street across T&T.
“I don’t have to tell you or anybody the fact that these casinos have sprung up in the world of money laundering and in the world of dirty money that is a red flag bigger than the flag we had in Macoya,” Rambharat said. “We are telling the world that we are open for dirty business. In the world of dirty money that is your biggest red flag because it is based on cash and it allows for the collection, for the deposit and for the movement of dirty money wherever it has to go,” he said. According to the 2017 FIU report, it received 121 requests from law enforcement agencies for financial intelligence and information. The six highest categories of suspected criminal conduct were drug trafficking (27) at 22 per cent, fraud (24) at 20 per cent, financing of terrorism (17) at 14 per cent, cash seizure (12) at 12 per cent, money laundering (8) at 7 per cent and corruption (6) at 5 per cent.
In addition, the FIU made 15 requests to law enforcement agencies and 26 to public authorities. There was a significant increase—108 per cent—in requests to public authorities.
The 2017 report, which covers the period October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017, highlighted large numbers of suspicious transactions—completed as well as attempted—using foreign currencies, including 307 involving US$3,081,814,113.56. Of this, 12 were attempted transactions with a monetary value of US$2,002,748,000.In the past year, the FIU has sent warning letters to 216 entities for breaches, including failure to register with the FIU and failure to rectify deficiencies observed during compliance audits.
Enforcement was instituted against 80 entities for failure to register with the FIU; 117 entities for anti-money laundering/counter financing of terrorism violations identified during compliance audits; 17 non-regulated financial institutions which failed to file quarterly terrorist property reports and two entities for failure to designate a compliance officer. The highest number of warning letters were sent to listed businesses in the real estate sector for failure to register—42 or 53 per cent out of a total of 80, the report stated.