The Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) received 100 Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) that had a connection to money laundering from 2016 to 2020 but investigated less than half, according to the second Money Laundering and Terrorist Financial (ML/TF) National Risk Assessment (NRA) report.
As part of the NRA a team from the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism National Coordination Committee assessed Guyana’s ability to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
It was found that Guyana’s Anti-Money Laundering legislation adequately provides for criminal sanctions, but since its enactment in 2009, there have been no convictions in relation to ML/TF crimes despite several investigations and the reports in the media of suspected criminal activities linked to money laundering.
Based on intelligence reports arising from STRs from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the assessment found that the FIU forwarded 100 intelligence reports for investigation, including follow-up reports. “Despite this large number of intelligence reports received, less than half were investigated, none resulted in prosecution or convictions and approximately 36 were not assigned for investigation as of the end of 2020,” the report stated.
Reasons listed for the lack of ML cases moving forward for prosecution are the lack of adequate human resources, insufficient evidence, and the fact that ML offences in Guyana were summary offences and investigators had to bring a charge with the offence of ML within six months of the commission of the offence. This changed, however as there was an amendment to the AML/CFT Act in 2017 that made the offence indictable and allows for charges to be brought at any time after the commission of the offence.
Only one case of ML charges was forwarded to the DPP in 2020 by SOCU. That matter related to a man and a woman who would recruit persons to join a Ponzi scheme.
“The victims were convinced that after placing their investments with the scheme administrators, their initial investments could triple within a week, [for] which a fee would be payable to the scheme administrators for their services. For this they were paid a fee. However, within the span of a few months the scheme administrators purchased several multi-million dollar properties. The initial investigation has revealed that the legitimate income of the two suspects were insufficient to purchase the properties,” the report said.
The Office of the DPP advised that further investigations be conducted to determine whether the two suspects can be charged for ML as a standalone offence, the report stated.
However, when the Working Group analyzed the data and statistics provided by the authorities, they concluded that the predicate offences investigated were all committed in Guyana, and the proceeds are likely laundered in Guyana as well.
According to the report, the WG believes that there is need for specialised training of law enforcement officers and of the Judiciary; a need for financial crimes analysts; special investigators for AML/CFT/PF related crimes and a greater collaboration of prosecutors and investigators on the elements of the crime. The report stated that the review of the quality of data required for prosecuting financial crimes may serve to identify data gaps and remedial actions can be taken.
“Data is the fuel in financial crime analytics; hence the comprehensiveness of the data is paramount. Analytic tools to identify, measure and monitor financial activities (regular and irregular) could improve the likelihood for a successful prosecution of financial criminals,” stated the report.
