Millions laundered before introduction of TT$100

The Financial Intelligence Unit, FIU, is reporting that an estimated TT$749 million (TTS1 dollar = US$0.16 cents) in “dirty money” got laundered as “clean currency” in the months leading up to changeover of the new TT$100 bills.

Newsday newspaper quoted the FIU as reporting that 429 transactions, amounting to $749.02 million, is the highest recorded number of money-laundering cases in the last three years, and occurred between July and September.

The acting head of FIU, Nigel Stoddard, in an email response to the newspaper, said there was an increase in money-laundering activities in the third quarter of this year compared to the same period last year.

“With respect to suspicious transaction reports and suspicious activity reports being reported to the FIU, the quarter April-June for the last three years has shown the highest submissions. The spike in reports filed with the FIU for the quarter July-September 2019 is due to the introduction of FIUConnect, a secure electronic e-filing system,” Stoddard said.

The paper reported that between 2010 to 2018, there were TT$12.09 billion completed money-laundering transactions. The FIU calculated there were TT$14.6 billion in “attempted transactions” from 2013. The highest ever record of attempted transactions was an estimated TT$13 billion in 2017 and more than eight billion in completed money-laundering transactions that year.

The Trinidad and Tobago government said one of the reasons behind the introduction of the new polymer bills was to fight money laundering and other illegal activities.

Last week, both Finance Minister Colm Imbert and National Security Minister Stuart Young told reporters that several people, including a person who claimed to be a barber, had been attempting to exchange millions of dollars in the old notes for the new one.

Stoddard told the newspaper that the introduction of the new notes would help money laundering and financial crime investigations.

“The FIU sees this transition period, for the exchange of the paper TT$100 notes to the polymer, as greatly assisting it in identifying suspected money laundering and other criminal conduct. Persons and businesses now have to bring the old notes into the financial system and give an account for the source.”

He said the polymer notes will also assist the police in detecting counterfeit bills as they are more difficult to forge.

The government has given a December 31 deadline to end transactions using the old $100 bill.

CMC