Sean Nero

De­spite the ef­forts of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU) and pas­sage of laws aimed at stem­ming mon­ey laun­der­ing, the il­le­gal trade con­tin­ues to thrive in T&T, says Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat.

Speak­ing on the sub­ject, Hard Eco­nom­ic Re­al­i­ties Fac­ing T&T, at the Em­ploy­ers' Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion's Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence at its Train­ing Room in Aranguez, the min­is­ter said no mat­ter how well cap­i­talised an or­gan­i­sa­tion was and its wealth of tal­ent, it could not get away from the is­sues of dis­rup­tion and dis­tor­tions caused by mon­ey laun­der­ing.

Ramb­harat said oth­er il­lic­it prac­tices af­fect­ing the eco­nom­ic health of T&T in­clud­ed il­le­gal quar­ry­ing, the il­le­gal diesel trade and gam­bling, each of which gen­er­at­ed $5 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly and cost the Trea­sury $15 bil­lion in rev­enue for the same pe­ri­od.

Mon­ey laun­der­ing, he said, is not de­signed to turn a prof­it and serves as noth­ing more than an im­ped­i­ment to the le­gal trans­ac­tions of bonafide en­tre­pre­neurs and in­vestors. Busi­ness­es formed to wash mon­ey through this coun­try's fi­nan­cial sys­tem, there­fore, are able to pro­vide goods and ser­vice way be­low cost and com­pete un­fair­ly with bonafide or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Ramb­harat said the FIU has iden­ti­fied cer­tain types of busi­ness that are more sus­cep­ti­ble to mon­ey laun­der­ing. They in­clude re­al es­tate, some pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, busi­ness­es re­lat­ed to the trade in jew­el­ry, restau­rants and con­struc­tion com­pa­nies.

"Any ac­tiv­i­ties where you are able to jus­ti­fy a flow of funds makes the busi­ness sus­cep­ti­ble to mon­ey laun­der­ing and if you are a bonafide busi­ness en­ter­prise try­ing to com­pete in an en­vi­ron­ment where you face un­der pric­ing by peo­ple who are not in le­git­i­mate busi­ness, then it's a chal­lenge to com­pete and it's a chal­lenge to main­tain prof­itabil­i­ty and sus­tain your busi­ness­es," he said.

The min­is­ter added, "The for­eign flow of funds in­to our re­gion and in­to T&T is very, very dis­rup­tive. Look around and see. In Rio Claro, my area, I nev­er ex­pect­ed to see four casi­nos, where I could vis­it all four with­in a five-minute walk. If you look around the coun­try you see in some very rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of casi­nos and then you would see the pro­lif­er­a­tion of gam­bling ma­chines.

"In fact, many es­tab­lish­ments which were pre­vi­ous­ly rum shops, were air con­di­tioned, the doors tint­ed and rent­ed out. You push the door and you see a mas­sive roulette ma­chine there and if you stand up out­side, you see peo­ple show­ing up as though they were show­ing up for work. So the flow of for­eign funds in­to and by the way out of this coun­try cre­ates dis­tor­tions and dis­rup­tions."

Ramb­harat said su­per­mar­ket traders in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties are un­der siege as a di­rect re­sult of "busi­ness­es" with less than ho­n­ourable in­tent.

But it is not just the flow of funds in­to this coun­try that should be of con­cern but the flow of funds from these shores, too, he said.

"Funds flow in­to T&T from one part of the world and are passed through seem­ing­ly le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es in T&T, but the ul­ti­mate des­ti­na­tion for these funds is North Amer­i­ca. That is where the re­al in­vest­ment in re­al es­tate takes place, but the source of funds has to be iden­ti­fied to meet the strict North Amer­i­can bank­ing re­quire­ments.

"The move­ment of the funds, di­rect­ly from cer­tain parts of the world in­to North Amer­i­ca are heav­i­ly scru­ti­nised, so those funds are passed through coun­tries like T&T, legis­timised and sent back out," said Ramb­harat.

"And, if you have any doubt, go to one of those busi­ness­es that al­lows you to send for­eign cur­ren­cy out of the coun­try. Go on a Mon­day morn­ing. Watch the line-up and watch the type of mon­ey in T&T dol­lars be­ing con­vert­ed and sent out of the coun­try rou­tine­ly."