TERRORIST FINANCING ALMOST FLAWLESS says Citigroup boss

Pickett said while all US financial institutions are required to report single or multiple, daily financial transactions over US$10,000, terrorist financing is more difficult to trace because the criminals use "small sums of money and transactions that are routine and not complex."

"The evidence to date clearly suggests that there is a substantial difference between money laundering and terrorist financing and that we cannot use traditional methods to detect terrorist financing," she told her audience.

Referring to September 11, Pickett, in her presentation, said information shows that the 19 hijackers involved were able to make $303, 481.63 in deposits and $303,671.62 in disbursements from American financial institutions - without drawing suspicion to themselves.

Pickett also said while import-export businesses have been tradtitionally viewed as fronts for money laundering operations, focus has now had to be placed increasingly on the operations of international charitable organisations.

She added that some of these organisations have been used by terrorist groups to finance their operations.

During the question and answer period, Pickett was asked if any research was done on Caribbean nations, including Trinidad and Tobago. She said she did not have such data.

However, Citigroup president for TT, Dennis Evans, said as far as he knew, Caricom nations had been strengthening their respective anti-money laundering mechanisms to deal with the problem.