Gail Alexan­der

Sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions and ac­tiv­i­ty re­ports worth TT$1.9 bil­lion were not­ed lo­cal­ly by the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FI­UTT) over the last fis­cal year—and there’s need for im­proved com­pli­ance by the cred­it union sec­tor in fil­ing Quar­ter­ly Prop­er­ty Ter­ror­ist Re­ports (QP­TRs).

Al­so, law is com­ing to reg­u­late, su­per­vise and mon­i­tor vir­tu­al as­sets and vir­tu­al as­sets ser­vice providers.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert in­di­cat­ed this in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, as he de­tailed the FI­UTT’s an­nu­al re­port for the year end­ing Sep­tem­ber 2022.

Im­bert said the FI­UTT had con­tin­ued us­ing the in­tel­li­gence pro­vid­ed from the analy­sis of Sus­pi­cious Trans­ac­tion Re­ports/Sus­pi­cious Ac­tiv­i­ty Re­ports (STRs/SARs) to en­sure en­ti­ties’ com­pli­ance with the An­ti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing/Counter Fi­nanc­ing of Ter­ror­ism/Counter Pro­lif­er­a­tion Fi­nanc­ing (AML/CFT/CPF) le­gal oblig­a­tions.

Dur­ing the re­port­ing pe­ri­od, Im­bert said the FI­UTT re­ceived 958 STRs/SARs, rep­re­sent­ing a de­crease of 42 per cent com­pared with the same pe­ri­od one year pri­or.

The to­tal mon­e­tary val­ue of the 958 STRs/SARs re­ceived was $1,937,211,057.

Im­bert said the bank­ing sec­tor sub­mit­ted 76 per cent of the STRs/SARs, fol­lowed by the Mon­ey of Val­ue Trans­fer Ser­vices (MVTS) sec­tor and Co-op­er­a­tive So­ci­eties, ac­count­ing for 11 per cent and 5 per cent, re­spec­tive­ly.

“Al­so, dur­ing the re­port­ing pe­ri­od, sub­mis­sions from the co-op­er­a­tive so­ci­eties, in­vest­ment com­pa­nies, mort­gage com­pa­nies, MVTS, mo­tor ve­hi­cle sales, re­al es­tate and pri­vate mem­bers’ clubs sec­tors all de­creased due to the pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions,” Im­bert said.

“Over­all, a 44 per cent de­crease was not­ed in STRs/SARs sub­mis­sions by fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and a 21 per cent de­crease in sub­mis­sions from list­ed busi­ness (LBs).”

Of the 958 STRS/SARS, he said 844 (in­volv­ing $1,586,346,802) were com­plet­ed trans­ac­tions, while some 195 (in­volv­ing $350,864,255) were at­tempt­ed trans­ac­tions.

“This rep­re­sent­ed a 24 per cent de­crease in com­plet­ed trans­ac­tions and a 68 per cent de­crease in at­tempt­ed trans­ac­tions when com­pared to the pre­vi­ous re­port­ing pe­ri­od. Of note, 16 STRs/SARs con­tained both com­plet­ed and at­tempt­ed trans­ac­tions.”

The FI­UTT not­ed an 83 per cent in­crease in sub­mis­sions from jew­ellers, the on­ly LB to record a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in STRs/SARs sub­mis­sions in the re­port­ing pe­ri­od.

He said sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty ranked the high­est among the five most com­mon rea­sons for the sub­mis­sion of STRs/SARs to the FI­UTT, rep­re­sent­ing 301 per­sons.

This was fol­lowed by tax eva­sion (211 per­sons), fraud (196), mon­ey laun­der­ing (155) and drug traf­fick­ing (35). These ac­count­ed for 94 per cent of the to­tal STRs/SARs re­ceived and 60 per cent of the to­tal mon­e­tary val­ue of all STRs/SARs sub­mit­ted.

Dur­ing the re­port­ing pe­ri­od, the FI­UTT com­plet­ed analy­sis of 212 STRs/SARs, gen­er­at­ing a to­tal of 69 in­tel­li­gence re­ports (65 sus­pect­ed mon­ey laun­der­ing cas­es and four sus­pect­ed fi­nanc­ing of ter­ror­ism cas­es), of which 45 were “spon­ta­neous dis­clo­sures.”

Thir­ty three were sub­mit­ted to lo­cal au­thor­i­ties and 12 were shared with for­eign law en­force­ment agen­cies and oth­er fi­nan­cial in­tel­li­gence units.

Im­bert said while fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions are gen­er­al­ly com­pli­ant with the oblig­a­tion for quar­ter­ly prop­er­ty ter­ror­ist re­ports, “Based on a com­pli­ance analy­sis of QP­TR sub­mis­sions, there’s need for im­proved com­pli­ance by the cred­it union sec­tor.”

Im­bert said some 88 per cent of non-reg­u­lat­ed fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions un­der the FI­UTT—cred­it unions, build­ing so­ci­eties and MVTS —were test­ed for com­pli­ance on AML/CFT/CPF.

There was a high lev­el of com­pli­ance by en­ti­ties on re­ceipt of warn­ing let­ters. But, “Con­verse­ly, the lev­el of re­sponse by the cred­it union sec­tor re­gard­ing fail­ure to sub­mit QTRs re­quires a more fo­cused ap­proach.”

Im­bert added, “Fur­ther leg­isla­tive amend­ments will be in­tro­duced in ar­eas such as the ex­ten­sion of the range of sanc­tions to in­clude ad­min­is­tra­tive fines in the AML/CFT/CPF regime; the in­tro­duc­tion of AML/CFT/CPF Reg­u­la­tions for­mu­lat­ed specif­i­cal­ly for non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions; fur­ther amend­ments to the FI­UT­TA.”

He said leg­isla­tive de­vel­op­ments will in­clude the reg­u­la­tion, su­per­vi­sion and mon­i­tor­ing of vir­tu­al as­sets and vir­tu­al as­sets ser­vice providers for both AML/CFT/CPF and pru­den­tial mea­sures; and the in­tro­duc­tion of a Cur­ren­cy Thresh­old Re­port­ing regime for re­port­ing en­ti­ties.”

Ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing flagged fre­quent­ly

The Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of T&T (FI­UTT) re­ceived 16 re­quests from for­eign au­thor­i­ties dur­ing the re­port­ing pe­ri­od, rep­re­sent­ing a 45 per cent in­crease com­pared to the pre­vi­ous re­port­ing pe­ri­od.

These re­quests fea­tured a to­tal of 85 sub­jects in con­trast to the 26 record­ed in the pre­vi­ous year.

“The sus­pect­ed crim­i­nal con­duct in the ma­jor­i­ty of cas­es was fi­nanc­ing of ter­ror­ism re­lat­ed, with four of the re­quests seek­ing in­tel­li­gence on 34 sub­jects.”

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Im­bert said the FI­UTT made 23 re­quests com­pris­ing of 45 sub­jects to for­eign au­thor­i­ties for fi­nan­cial in­tel­li­gence and in­for­ma­tion.

“The re­quests made to for­eign au­thor­i­ties in­volved 11 cas­es of sus­pect­ed fraud and five cas­es of drug traf­fick­ing. Re­quests re­ceived from for­eign au­thor­i­ties orig­i­nat­ed main­ly from the Caribbean, the Mid­dle East and Eu­rope,” Im­bert said.

“Sim­i­lar­ly, the FI­UTT sent the ma­jor­i­ty of re­quests to for­eign au­thor­i­ties in the Caribbean, the Amer­i­c­as and Asia.”