Episode Description
Money laundering, fraud, ponzi schemes, insider trading. These are all examples of financial crimes and you can be arrested and spend years in prison. Here in Jamaica, the Financial Investigations Divisions (FID) is responsible for investigating these crimes.
ARTICLE
Money laundering, fraud, ponzi schemes, insider trading. These are all examples of financial crimes and you can be arrested and spend years in prison. Here in Jamaica, the Financial Investigations Divisions (FID) is responsible for investigating these crimes.
Under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the FID is charged with monitoring financial institutions such as banks and credit unions for suspicious financial transactions. Financial institutions must submit reports of suspicious transactions to the FID, which collaborates with the police to investigate and charge individuals or companies that are suspected of carrying out money laundering or funding acts of terrorism. They are able to seize, on behalf of the state, proceeds of crime from individuals implicated on lottery scamming, drug offence, fraud or terrorism charges.
According to Selvin Hay, Chief Technical Director of the FID, investigations carried out by the investigative arm of the FID and their law enforcement partners have led to court proceedings and convictions. “This has helped to start change the narrative, the whole reality of people who engage the financial sector,” said Hay.
Following the extradition of Sheikh Abdullah El-Faisal to the United States to face terrorism charges in August 2020, the FID successfully applied for approximately J$500,000 belonging to El-Faisal to be turned over to the government under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Earlier this year, the European Union (EU) included Jamaica on its list of countries that do not have a strong anti-money-laundering or antiterrorism framework. In response, the FID has been working to improve their ability to identify and investigate financial crimes.
They recently launched goAML (Anti-Money Laundering System) to improve data collection, storage and analysis. GoAML is a software that allows financial institutions to upload their reports which are then processed and analyzed by the software.
“It has really changed in a positive way how we do business,” said Hay said during an interview with Kalilah Reynolds on What’s In It For Me.
They are also in the process of digitizing operations so that all aspects of cases can be processed online.
“Living in this global village, we can’t afford to have a weakened financial system,” said Hay.
These improvements will ensure that the FID is able to better safeguard our financial sector against financial crimes so that we can partner and trade with other countries.
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