CFATF to combat illegal money transfers

www.barbadosadvocate.com Web Posted - Mon Feb 24 2003 CARIBBEAN Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) countries are fully committed to working with the rest of the world to choke off any possibility of funding reaching terrorists via their respective financial systems.

This is the word from Calvin Wilson, executive director of the CFATF who said the countries in the Caribbean and Latin America are also looking to maintain effective anti-money laundering controls.

In pursuit of this goal, Wilson said CFATF, along with the governments of Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Venezuela are partnering to spend US$100 000 on the training of front-line public and private sector officials in the financial industry with a view to having the courses replicated domestically.

This training is also being done in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Officials of banks and banking supervisory entities in these four member states of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force are to receive advanced training in the best methods to detect and prevent money launderers attempting to “clean” their ill-gotten gains through the official banking systems of the region.

Wilson, along with the IDB Representative in Trinidad and Tobago, William J. Robinson, recently signed the training agreement in Port-of-Spain. At the signing ceremony, Wilson noted the efforts of James Spinner, Rosina De Souza of the Washington office of the IDB and Rafael Franzini of the Organisation of American States/CICAD in making the agreement possible.

He said the training programme, which is due to start in April 2003 would result in additional support for the financial sector to prevent the infiltration of “dirty” money into the system.

“Money launderers have a powerful incentive to attempt to circumvent anti-money laundering controls, and therefore there is a need to continually provide updated training in monitoring and detecting to respond to the challenges facing banks”, Wilson said.

He added that the programme will also provide an opportunity for regional banking regulators to share practical experiences, for a hands-on perspective of how best to maintain the integrity of anti- money laundering systems.

Wilson said this training programme is a demonstration of the political will of Caribbean Basin countries to work with the international community to deter money launderers, drug dealers and terrorists from conducting their operations in this region.