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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