As glob­al ef­forts con­tin­ue to com­bat mon­ey laun­der­ing and fi­nan­cial ter­ror­ism, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist of the Min­istry of Fi­nance Do­minic Hinds is call­ing for more ar­rests and pros­e­cu­tion of white-col­lar crim­i­nals.He was speak­ing in re­sponse to an ar­ti­cle pub­lished last month in the Mon­tre­al Gazette, which quot­ed two Cana­di­an mon­ey-laun­der­ing ex­perts as say­ing T&T was a haven for mon­ey laun­der­ing.In a state­ment sent via e-mail on Wednes­day, Hinds said ef­forts were be­ing made to com­bat mon­ey laun­der­ing and fi­nan­cial ter­ror­ism in T&T. He al­so said there was no proof that the un­der­ground crim­i­nal net­work is keep­ing T&T's econ­o­my afloat."While all coun­tries have an el­e­ment of what you men­tioned as 'un­der­ground pro­ceeds' in their econ­o­my, we have no in­for­ma­tion that this is sus­tain­ing T&T eco­nom­i­cal­ly," Hinds said.

He said, how­ev­er, that the Cen­tral Bank or the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice might be bet­ter po­si­tioned to give T&T's eco­nom­ic out­look.He al­so point­ed out that the Mon­tre­al Gazette of­fered no proof to sup­port its claims. The Gazette sto­ry, pub­lished on May 30, said T&T and Pana­ma were known mon­ey-laun­der­ing havens where one can stash mil­lions of dol­lars and trans­fer funds to off­shore ac­counts with­out au­thor­i­ties find­ing out.The ar­ti­cle stemmed from the ar­rest of Arthur Porter, for­mer head of the McGill Uni­ver­si­ty Health Cen­tre, and his wife, who were head­ed to T&T when they were ar­rest­ed on charges of mon­ey laun­der­ing and con­spir­a­cy aris­ing from a $1.3 bil­lion con­tract."No facts were pro­vid­ed in the ar­ti­cle to sub­stan­ti­ate the al­le­ga­tion," Hinds said.

"It is the in­ter­na­tion­al body, the Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force (FATF), which sets stan­dards and mon­i­tors ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion of le­gal, reg­u­la­to­ry and op­er­a­tional mea­sures for com­bat­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing, ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing and oth­er re­lat­ed threats to the in­tegri­ty of the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial sys­tem."

He not­ed that T&T was re­moved from the FATF's pub­lic state­ment in Oc­to­ber 2012."The re­moval of T&T from the FATF's pub­lic state­ment was as a re­sult of the FATF's sat­is­fac­tion with the sig­nif­i­cant progress made by T&T in im­prov­ing the an­ti-mon­ey laun­der­ing and com­bat­ing fi­nan­cial ter­ror­ism (AML/CFT) regime."Hind said sev­er­al at­tempts have been made to com­bat mon­ey laun­der­ing in T&T."To our knowl­edge, the Cen­tral Bank has im­ple­ment­ed sys­tems for the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions they su­per­vise to pre­vent mon­ey laun­der­ing and the fi­nanc­ing of ter­ror­ism, but the Cen­tral Bank would be best po­si­tioned to ex­pand on all the mea­sures they have tak­en."Asked whether the FIU had suc­ceed­ed in pre­vent­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing, Hinds said: "There are sev­er­al mea­sures which coun­tries must im­ple­ment to de­ter and de­tect mon­ey laun­der­ing. "The FIU serves as the in­for­ma­tion-re­lat­ed arm of an­ti-mon­ey laun­der­ing and fi­nan­cial ter­ror­ism mea­sures...it is an ad­min­is­tra­tive-type FIU and does not con­duct in­ves­ti­ga­tions."The FIU pro­duces in­tel­li­gence which it then sends to the law-en­force­ment agen­cies who con­duct the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ters."

He not­ed that the FIU, as the su­per­vi­so­ry au­thor­i­ty for list­ed busi­ness­es and non-reg­u­lat­ed fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, al­so mon­i­tors these en­ti­ties' com­pli­ance with the an­ti-mon­ey-laun­der­ing and fi­nan­cial ter­ror­ism laws and reg­u­la­tions.While the FIU is on­ly one of the su­per­vi­so­ry au­thor­i­ties, the Cen­tral Bank su­per­vis­es fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions while the Se­cu­ri­ties Com­mis­sion su­per­vis­es se­cu­ri­ties bro­ker deal­ers, in­vest­ment ad­vi­sors and un­der­writ­ers, he said.Hinds said all of these en­ti­ties–the FIU, Cen­tral Bank, Se­cu­ri­ties Com­mis­sion and the su­per­vised busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als–had oblig­a­tions to im­ple­ment mea­sures to de­tect and de­ter mon­ey laun­der­ers.He said there must al­so be greater pub­lic aware­ness of AML/CFT."Re­port­ing en­ti­ties com­ply with their AML/CFT oblig­a­tions, es­pe­cial­ly by re­port­ing trans­ac­tions which they rea­son­ably sus­pect to in­volve mon­ey laun­der­ing and fi­nan­cial ter­ror­ism." He al­so said there must be more pros­e­cu­tion of those who have com­mit­ted mon­ey laun­der­ing and fi­nan­cial ter­ror­ism.

What has the FIU done?

The FIU has im­ple­ment­ed sev­er­al pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures in AML/CFT (as pub­lished in its an­nu­al re­port 2012).

These in­clude:

Train­ing and out­reach to in­di­vid­u­als and en­ti­ties which have AML/CFT oblig­a­tions (re­port­ing en­ti­ties)

Pro­vid­ing guid­ance to re­port­ing en­ti­ties to as­sist them in com­ply­ing with their oblig­a­tions

Pro­vid­ing feed­back to re­port­ing en­ti­ties on the sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tion re­ports (STRs)

On-site su­per­vi­sion of FIU su­per­vised en­ti­ties

En­force­ment ac­tion against en­ti­ties that are in breach of their oblig­a­tions

In­creased num­ber of in­tel­li­gence re­ports sub­mit­ted to the law-en­force­ment agen­cies

Co-op­er­a­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion with Cen­tral Bank, T&T Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion and the law-en­force­ment agen­cies