Gail Alexan­der

Re­ports of sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ties which were not­ed by lo­cal fi­nan­cial en­ti­ties in­creased from 111 in 2009-2010 to 303 in 2010-2011, a Caribbean Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force (CFATF) re­port has stat­ed. The re­port was cir­cu­lat­ed at Mon­day's Par­lia­ment ses­sion. The task force is geared at mon­i­tor­ing fi­nan­cial-sec­tor ac­tiv­i­ties, cov­er­ing sev­er­al en­ti­ties, to pre­vent mon­ey-laun­der­ing and ter­ror­ism.

Its man­date in­cludes a range of com­pa­nies which must re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ties, among them gam­ing hous­es, jew­ellers, car-sales com­pa­nies, postal ser­vices, pri­vate mem­bers' clubs, at­tor­neys, re­al es­tate and art deal­ers. The re­port analysed mea­sures tak­en by T&T to com­ply with CFATF, fol­low-up pro­ce­dures and the rec­om­men­da­tions of a mu­tu­al eval­u­a­tion re­port.

The re­port stat­ed T&T was rat­ed par­tial­ly com­pli­ant or non-com­pli­ant on 15 of the 16 core and key rec­om­men­da­tions and 26 oth­er rec­om­men­da­tions. At­tor­neys, car re­tail­ers and re­al es­tate en­ti­ties sub­mit­ted sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty re­ports for the first time last year. The re­port not­ed that the num­ber of sus­pi­cious-ac­tiv­i­ty re­ports tripled in 2011 over the 2010 pe­ri­od.

It al­so not­ed that en­ti­ties sub­mit­ting such re­ports from last Oc­to­ber 2011 to last Jan­u­ary to­talled 100. Over the 2009 to 2012 pe­ri­od the largest num­ber of such re­ports were in the bank­ing sec­tor, with the sec­ond largest in re­mit­tance com­pa­nies. The Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, which works in tan­dem with the unit, does two on-site ex­am­i­na­tions month­ly.

It has so far ex­am­ined two at­tor­neys-at-law, two pri­vate mem­bers' clubs, a re­al-es­tate busi­ness and a car deal­er, the re­port stat­ed. There are 1,465 busi­ness­es list­ed. The re­port said with re­gard to op­er­a­tions of the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions' Branch in 2011, the branch re­ceived 38 cas­es, of which 18 are on­go­ing.

This in­clud­ed one for mon­ey-laun­der­ing, 11 sus­pi­cious-ac­tiv­i­ty re­ports and two for cash seizures. On com­plet­ed cas­es, a mon­ey-laun­der­ing file, two ap­pli­ca­tions for re­straint or­ders and two cash seizures have been for­ward­ed to the DPP's of­fice, the re­port stat­ed.

On­go­ing cas­es in­clude one mon­ey-laun­der­ing file, ten sus­pi­cious-ac­tiv­i­ty re­ports and one cash seizure un­der probe and one such seizure be­fore the court for for­fei­ture, the re­port not­ed. It said con­cern re­mained about the slow pace of leg­is­la­tion gov­ern­ing cred­it unions and the Se­cu­ri­ties Bill and im­ple­ment­ing su­per­vi­sion for the se­cu­ri­ties sec­tor.