A del­e­ga­tion from the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Units (FIU) of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the British Vir­gin Is­lands is hold­ing talks with the gov­ern­ment and oth­er stake­hold­ers as part of the coun­try’s re­quest to join the Egmont Group of the FIU.

The del­e­ga­tion is to pro­vide a re­port to the Egmont Group in Ju­ly 2023 in Dubai for con­sid­er­a­tion and if suc­cess­ful, this will en­able Guyana to join the Egmont Group in ear­ly-2024.

As a glob­al or­ga­ni­za­tion, the Egmont Group fa­cil­i­tates and prompts the ex­change of in­for­ma­tion, knowl­edge, and co­op­er­a­tion amongst mem­ber FIUs, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment post­ed on its of­fi­cial web­site.

It said it pro­vides FIUs with a plat­form to se­cure­ly ex­change ex­per­tise and fi­nan­cial in­tel­li­gence to com­bat mon­ey laun­der­ing, ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing, and as­so­ci­at­ed pred­i­cate crimes.

Fi­nan­cial in­tel­li­gence units are re­quired by in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards to ex­change in­for­ma­tion and en­gage in in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

A gov­ern­ment state­ment here said that the del­e­ga­tion Nigel Stod­dard, the Act­ing Di­rec­tor of the FIU in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and his coun­ter­part from the British Vir­gin Is­lands, Er­rol George, held talks with At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, Anil Nand­lall, S.C.

It said that the del­e­ga­tion com­mend­ed Guyana on its cur­rent AML/CFT frame­work and the con­sis­tent ex­change of in­for­ma­tion and co­op­er­a­tion with­in this do­mes­tic net­work. It al­so hailed Guyana’s FIU for ex­e­cut­ing Mem­o­ran­da of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) with al­most all of its coun­ter­parts across the Caribbean and oth­er key stake­hold­ers.

The del­e­ga­tion al­so met with the Fi­nance Sec­re­tary, the Spe­cial Or­gan­ised Crime Unit (SOCU), the Cus­toms An­ti Nar­cot­ic Unit (CANU), the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Bank of Guyana, Guyana Se­cu­ri­ties Coun­cil and the Guyana Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (GRA). They are al­so sched­uled to meet with re­port­ing en­ti­ties in­clud­ing the com­mer­cial banks and the Guyana Im­mi­gra­tion Ser­vice.

Nand­lall said he re­mains op­ti­mistic that the del­e­ga­tion’s vis­it and in­put will help to ac­cel­er­ate Guyana’s ap­pli­ca­tion to join the Egmont Group, as the coun­try is be­com­ing a so­phis­ti­cat­ed econ­o­my at­tract­ing large in­vest­ments, un­der­scor­ing the im­por­tance of cre­at­ing a strong reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work to pro­tect its grow­ing fi­nan­cial sec­tor.

“Guyana’s join­der to this im­por­tant in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion will sig­nif­i­cant­ly en­hance its FIU in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pa­bil­i­ty to ac­cess in­ter­na­tion­al plat­forms and to re­ceive and be able to dis­sem­i­nate vi­tal in­for­ma­tion and in­tel­li­gence in re­la­tion to or­gan­ised crime, ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing, and oth­er lo­cal and cross-bor­der il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties,” the state­ment added.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Apr 26, CMC

CMC/gt/ir/2023