US Ambassador donates $4M to fight money laundering

United States Ambassador, Prof Roy Austin, has donated over $4 million to fight  money laundering in the Caribbean. At the United States Embassy at Marli Street, on Wednesday Austin presented a cheque for US$680,000 to the Caribbean Anti-Money Laundering Programme (CALP) programme manager, Brian Reynolds OBE. A cheque for $55,000 was presented to Roger Hernandez of the Caribbean Fina-ncial Action Task Force (CFATF). The cheques, the ambassador said, represented yearly donations to the two organisations by the Department of State’s Bureau of Inter-national Narcotics and Law Enforce-ment.

Austin declared: “The US Government recognises that monetary gains from money laundering, corruption and international financial crimes in general may fund terrorists, hamper economic development and lead to the moral degradation of peoples around the world.” The United States, he added, was happy to assist the efforts of  CALP and CFATF to stamp out these illegal activities. After the presentation, Reynolds told Newsday that CALP had existed since 1999 and expected to achieve its main goals by the end of 2004. It operates through the whole Caribbean Basin, he said, offering three aspects of anti-money-laundering training — legal, financial and law enforcement. Its legal programme helps to advise on legislative drafting and to train judges, magistrates, and prosecutors to investigate money laundering offences.

Its financial programme works with banks and financial instructions to help identify suspicious or unusual business activity which might possibly involve money laundering offences. CALP’s law enforcement programme helped train law enforcement officers to investigate offences brought to notice. Hernandez expl-ained that since 1991 CFATF has worked throughout its 30 member states in the Caribbean to ensure compliance with international requirements against money laundering. Through CFATF, countries underwent mutual evaluation exercises to evaluate compliance. CFATF then gave technical assistance to help correct any deficiencies and bring countries up to the required standard.