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  • 1 year ago
It is illegal to advertise that you're accepting or buying US or any other foreign currency unless you're an authorised dealer, reveals the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago at today's parliamentary committee sitting.

Transcript
00:00The legitimate supply of foreign exchange has been a challenge within
00:04recent times and has allowed the expansion of a thriving black market.
00:09Today many a storefront advertising that they are buying or accepting foreign
00:14currency but the central bank is reinforcing its position that this is
00:19illegal. You must be an authorized dealer in order to buy and sell foreign
00:25exchange. However as part of our surveillance of the market we have seen
00:31the ads and we have sought legal opinion in terms of whether it is legal or not
00:38and based on the opinions that we got it is saying that if somebody purchase or
00:46sell foreign exchange they are committing an anticipatory offense of
00:52conspiracy eating abetting attempting counseling or procuring the seal of
00:58foreign exchange contrary to our section 6 1 and therefore if an authorized
01:05unauthorized person advertise the purchase and seal it is arguably an
01:12offense. Senior counsel have however opined that the legislation ought to
01:17have the specific offense of advertising and as such amendments are
01:23needed. The Financial Intelligence Unit has started a currency transaction
01:28policy document which once implemented will alert officials via automatic
01:33reports of foreign transactions upward of a threshold amount in the form of
01:39wire transfers or otherwise and which may even be done in batches. Not waiting
01:46for an STR to be filed because an STR may not be filed on someone relative to
01:52transaction they are conducted. The FIU can act based on those currency
02:01transaction reporting to assist in determining whether ML base again comes
02:08back to the amount of transaction being conducted throughout a period of time as
02:12well. The FIU have seeked and we have started a policy document that would
02:23seek to introduce that type of reporting in Trinidad and Tobago. The unit has been
02:28collaborating with foreign entities and exchanged information relative to money
02:34laundering tax evasion and drug trafficking. There are over 140 money
02:40laundering charges before the courts. The cash intensive and unregulated area of
02:46money lending was raised as a possible risk for money laundering. Last risk
02:51assessment flagged it as an area of emerging risk but it did not actually
02:56conduct the assessment at that point in time. So coming out of the current
03:00national risk assessment there is a separate standalone assessment being
03:06done currently of the sector to assess the level of risk, the level of exposure
03:12posed by the sector as it is unregulated at this point in time. So the outcomes of
03:20that assessment will inform regulatory reform. These events unfolded at the
03:26Joint Select Committee of Parliament as it conducted an inquiry into the
03:31performance of the Financial Intelligence Unit of Trinidad and
03:34Tobago in relation to improving AML and CFT compliance.
03:39Rishi Tiwari, Rupanarayan TV6 News.
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