Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 11, 2014 News
– DPP crucial to securing prosecutions
By Kiana Wilburg
The newly established Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) was welcomed by the A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU)
Leader, David Granger yesterday at his weekly press conference. He however, expressed concern about the massive backlog of money laundering reports that the entity will have to deal with.
Granger reminded members of the media about the worrying fact that after 14 years of having the Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act, there has not been a single prosecution.
The Opposition Leader reminded too, that the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which received 858 reports of suspicious financial activity from its reporting entities in 2011, only forwarded one report to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and nothing became of that case. With SOCU being assigned as the investigative arm of the FIU, Granger said that the entity would be faced with a 14-year backlog of suspicious financial reports. The Opposition Leader said that for the SOCU to be successful, the DPP would be crucial to ensuring prosecutions and said that all should be done to ensure that the entity is given the necessary resources so that it can carry out proper investigations.
“I can only hope that there will be some prosecutions, but the DPP would definitely be integral to its success. The SOCU is a good move but until I see the terms of reference for the staff, I won’t be able to comment on how it is going to deal effectively with its work and I can only hope that it is given the resources to deal with the backlog of suspicious transactions report over that 14-year period.”
APNU’s Shadow Minister of Finance, Carl Greenidge had told this publication that for the SOCU to be a success, certain key agencies will have to improve their financial investigative capacity.
The politician had said that the work assigned to this unit is not normal police work. He had explained that the fight against money laundering is simple in concept, and involves people who make money in a variety of ways, including the drug trade.
Money launderers, he said, try to get “ill-gotten-money” into the banking system as normal deposits so that they may spend when and where they like, without hindrance from the relevant authorities.
Stopping them, Greenidge had asserted, involves policing which includes drug interdiction and detective work.
The former Finance Minister had said that the fight against money launderers will require particularly, forensic accounting, auditing and legal analysis. He opined that very little of the latter aspect is to be found among the professionals in the disciplined services.
“This whole process is like a chain and each link depends on each other. The FIU depends on its reporting institutions to report all activities that are suspicious. The FIU, after receiving that report, will now send it off to the SOCU which will operate as the investigative arm.
Now my point is simply that the strength of the information SOCU receives, depends on the capacity of the reporting agencies to even detect, investigate and analyze certain activities so that they send to the FIU a comprehensive report. To support this point, just consider the FIU where the one report that was actually forwarded to the DPP was incomplete. A chain is as strong as its weakest link and we need to address every weak area so that SOCU does not become another toothless poodle,” Greenidge had asserted.
He added “The Head of the SOCU will require the types of capacities I have outlined above and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) as well as the Banks and the DPP, will need to deepen their capacities on the financial and investigative front in terms of financial and accounting analysis.” The mandate of both the FIU and SOCU is to investigate suspicious transactions based on reports it would receive from the relevant reporting entities.
The SOCU was conceptualized by Cabinet last year and $63.1M was later approved for the construction of its headquarters. At the moment, the newly formed entity has no formal office to even start preliminary administrative work.
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