(Trinidad Express) A number of explain-your-wealth orders are being prepared as a result of information gathered during the recently conducted currency changeover, as well as through the enhanced monitoring by the Board of Inland Revenue and Financial Investigations Branch (FIB), a source said yesterday.
The $100 dollar changeover ended on December 31, 2019.
The source said it is likely that Longdenville pastor Vinworth Anthony Dayal, of the Third Exodus Assembly Church, would be among those persons who would receive an explain-your-wealth order.
The FIB seized $28,046,500 from Dayal under the Proceeds of Crime Act on Old Year’s Day after getting a detention order from a magistrate moments before midnight to detain the money, on December 31.
“If you are being investigated for a specified offence—that is any offence under the Proceeds of Crime Act—you can be called upon to explain your wealth.
“And under the explain-your-wealth order, if you can’t explain your wealth, if you cannot provide a plausible explanation, you lose it. Under the law, it is subject to forfeiture,” the source said.
The source pointed out the case of the pastor feeds into a number of laws such as the Non-Profit Organisations (NPO) Act (which became law in April 2019), which requires churches and other NPOs to incorporate themselves.
It also requires any organisation that receives over $10 million of gross annual income:
1. To have its financial records audited and reported on by a qualified auditor
2. To be registered with the FIU
3. Has to account for what it is doing with people’s money.
