With 59 investigations in progress, the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) is in dire need of more staff, funding and specially trained cash-sniffing dogs, Director of The Fraud Company Dr. Sam Sittlington said yesterday.
Dr. Sittlington at the time was delivering a debriefing in which he revealed that the Unit’s staff complement presently comprises an Assistant Director, four investigators and one secretary. During his presentation at a press conference hosted by the British High Commissioner to Guyana Greg Quinn, the Ireland-based financial investigation expert made recommendations which he believes are necessary to enhance the capabilities of SOCU.
Although Dr. Sittlington had said a few weeks ago that the media would have been invited to the debriefing, no media advisory was sent out. Instead, the British High Commission sent invitations to what appears to be select media personnel. No invitation was received by Stabroek News.
Dr. Sittlington told those gathered at Quinn’s Bel Air Gardens residence that three CID Detectives have been seconded to SOCU to work on the investigation into government holding company NICIL and help sift the vast amount of documents resulting from that case. SOCU has been embroiled in controversy over the NICIL probe after a botched surveillance operation resulted in three traffic deaths in January.
Dr Sittlington disclosed that SOCU currently manages a total of 285 investigations, 59 of which are live. These live investigations, he said require immediate action while the remainder are on hold until further intelligence becomes available.
“Prioritising is essential”, he said, adding that the Unit also services the needs of other agencies. He informed that the Unit is expecting further large NICIL-type investigations “to reach their doors in the coming weeks”.
This workload, he stressed, cannot be sustained with the current staff.
He said that a proposal by the Unit’s head, Assistant Commissioner Sydney James to increase the capacity of the Unit needs to be “seriously considered and expeditiously approved”. This increased capacity he posited includes a deputy commissioner, additional investigators, a legal officer, forensic accountant and administrative staff.
In addition to the increased staff, Dr. Sittlington also recommended that there be approved Funding to SOCU.
He took note of the ongoing discussions pertaining to who should fund the Unit. “The autonomy of the Unit needs to be addressed. A number of Ministries have a say in the functioning of SOCU and this creates confusion and instability. To have clear Ministerial direction and funding from one source and a budget that caters for the operational needs of SOCU is a priority”, he said.
He informed that much of the equipment supplied to SOCU has come from external sources and said that to obtain equipment, the Unit has to “beg or borrow”.
“So in order to work effectively SOCU needs to know what their budget is and that those funds are immediately available”, he stressed.
During the just concluded consideration of estimates the House heard that $40M was set aside for the Unit. However, the opposition was quick to question why an allocation was made under the Ministry of the Presidency. It was explained that this was as a result of the arrangements put in place by the previous government and that plans are currently underway to have it placed under the Guyana Police Force. It was later revealed that one staffer – a contract employee- was being paid through the Ministry of Public Security.
Dogs
To quicken search operations, the expert recommended that dogs be specially trained to sniff out money as is done with drugs and explosives.
“I have been present at search operations over the past few weeks and the opportunity to lessen the time to search large warehouses and grounds could have been reduced. Similarly, due to the number of currency couriers operating through the Airports the same procedures could be applied”, he said that the presence of such dogs can have an immense impact.
Dr. Sittlington recommended that there be training of the DPP, Prosecu-tors, Judiciary and Magis-trates so as to increase the number of successful prosecutions in money laundering.
He made it known that SOCU investigators are tackling a subject which has seen many challenges in other countries such as the UK. “There have previously been mistakes in case files in decision making, lack of evidence and incomplete documentation, this has had an impact on the rate of successful prosecutions and forfeitures”, he said, noting that other factors have also played a part in these failings.
The judiciary and magistrates, he pointed out have made determinations to dismiss, in cases where the evidence was in place or where they did have power to make forfeiture orders. Such cases, he said have gone to appeal.
“I believe a training structure should follow operational needs. Formal selection of staff should be followed by formal instruction in the three primary disciplines: financial intelligence, evidence gathering, and asset tracing/freezing”, he said.
The former police investigator told the gathering that further training should be given on money laundering investigation, enhanced financial intelligence and criminal confiscation. “Where possible, the training should be aligned with training for line managers and specialist prosecutors”, he posited, adding that the judiciary should be trained on appropriate laws and how to properly adjudicate on financial investigative matters.
He used the occasion to call for the assigning of special prosecutors in the area of proceeds of crime. He expressed belief that the DPP should allocate a number of special prosecutors to concentrate solely on such matters.
As-hoc
Expertise to prosecute money laundering-type cases is required and shouldn’t be an ad-hoc presentation to prosecutors who are dealing with multiple crime cases and may be seeing this sort of crime for the first time.
“I believe as the number of SOCU cases increase the requirement for this move will become greater. Perhaps planning for this now will reap early benefits as opposed to when it is too late”, he said.
The positives from this move, he said will give SOCU investigators confidence to ask for prosecutorial advice, add value to their prosecution files in terms of solid evidence and increase the number of successful prosecutions and confiscations.
According to Dr. Sittlington, another recommendation would be for the sharing of information by the Financial Intelli-gence Unit (FIU) and Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA)
The role of the FIU, he pointed out is to administer and analyse the intelligence reports from banks and other financial and reporting institutions and disseminate that intelligence to law enforcement. He said that it is the role of SOCU to transform that intelligence into evidence.
Not all reports to the FIU will lead to meaningful investigations due to defensive reporting by banks and/or legitimate transactions that appeared at first suspicious, he said adding that in most cases only 2% of reports are/or become financial investigations.
“The supply of information to SOCU is not to be used in a fishing expedition but to provide the beginnings of an investigation which they build upon through the use of production orders and financial investigation”, he posited.
“I believe the process of sharing this intelligence could be improved. Both SOCU and FIU work hand in hand in combatting money laundering and their communication is essential on a daily basis. Therefore, the exchange of information to assist current investigations should be swift and timely”, he said.
Among the suggestions made by Dr. Sittlington for improved sharing of information are imbedding an FIU officer in SOCU with a database link up to FIU; a point of contact at FIU to deal specifically with SOCU requests and access by SOCU to the FIU database.
In terms of GRA activity, he said that tax evasion is a serious offence according to AML/CTF legislation. However, GRA, he pointed out can conduct their own tax investigations and prosecutions. Only SOCU can conduct money laundering investigations. Although some tax information is being supplied upon request by SOCU for those investigations, this again is a very tedious process. “GRA appear reluctant to supply information due to their secrecy provisions even though Part V111 Section 111 of the AML/CTF Act overrides secrecy obligations. I suggest a review of the MOU to expedite requests relating to SOCU and timeframes for responses to be put in place”, he said.
According to the financial investigations expert, another recommendation would be for consideration of non-conviction-based asset recovery powers.
He explained that although forfeiture should never be a substitute for criminal prosecution, non-conviction-based asset recovery provides for the recovery of cash from proceeds of crime where a conviction is not required. “It is a civil process that refers to the cash seized or instrumentalities that relates to crime or intended for the use in crime”, he said.
He added that non-conviction-based civil forfeiture differs from criminal forfeiture in that the latter requires a criminal trial based on ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standard and prosecution prior to the actual confiscation proceedings taking place.
“Such an addition to the current AML/CTF legislation would have a dramatic effect on deterring criminal activity and recovery of assets (stolen from the state or otherwise) where law enforcement cannot put a crime to the assets/funds”, he said, adding that he is aware that the State Assets Recovery Unit is currently pursuing a similar programme.
Dr. Sittlington has recommended that consideration be given to the repealing of the AML/CTF Act and replacing it with proceeds-of-crime legislation.
Gold Standard
He said that this should be done based upon a regional ‘model’. This model legislation is, he said currently being pushed as the ‘gold standard’ in the region and it’s closely based upon the UK’s version.
“The one thing that I would advise Guyana (is) to keep their definition of currency. I think it is the widest definition I have seen and it would encompass ‘prepaid’ credit cards as well as gold, precious stones and jewellery. In this respect I think the Guyana ‘cash seizure’ powers are more powerful even than the UK (which is the best in Europe) and of course the loss of gold, diamonds, emeralds etc, is a huge issue for the Guyanese economy”, he said.
Further, he recommended that there be a formation of working groups at two levels.
The first he mentioned is the strategic level which should operate with heads of the key stakeholders such as SOCU, DPP, Legal officer Central Authority, CANU, SARU, FIU, Crime Police and the GRA. The role of this group, he explained would be to discuss strategic issues in terms of legislation weaknesses, MOU’s, resources, future training needs, joint enterprises etc. This group should be chaired by a person who can take their ideas and views to a higher level and they should also meet every three months, he said.
The second level was labeled as the practitioner. Dr. Sittlington explained that a member of the strategic group should chair the practitioners’ working group in order to cascade and return ideas coming from the discussions in both groups. The practitioners working group should also meet every three months and include investigators from the main branches of investigation.
The tenth and final recommendation, he said should be a review of the Unit’s operations in another six to eight months.
