Alliance Finance Limited fined a total of $21 million for financial crimes
Published:Thursday | March 10, 2022 | 4:32 PM
Alliance Finance Limited (AFL) was this afternoon fined a total of $21.4 million in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court for various breaches of the Bank of Jamaica and Banking Services acts.
The company was fined $50,000 or nine months on each of the 28 counts of breaches of the Bank of Jamaica Act.
And it was fined $2,500,000 or 12 months on each of the eight counts of breaches of the Banking Services Act.
The company was given two working days within which to pay the fine.
The company had pleaded guilty to several counts of financial crimes in January.
Robert Chin, one of the principals of Alliance, had entered the plea on the company's behalf.
The plea was in relation to offences connected to the lending of monies and accepting deposits without authorisation.
Businessmen Peter Chin and Robert Chin, the principals of Alliance Financial Services Limited and Alliance Investment Management Limited were charged for breaches of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) Act, the Banking Services Act and the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Alliance Financial and Peter Chin were charged with carrying on the business of lending foreign currency without being an authorised dealer in relation to more than 20 foreign currency loans, totalling approximately US$8 million, to various entities.
Robert and Peter Chin were jointly charged for breaches of the Banking Services Act for accepting deposits without the requisite licence from the BOJ relating to a series of deposits in excess of US$7.5 million over a three-year period from 2014 to 2017.
Additionally, Alliance Investment was charged with failure to file threshold transaction reports as mandated under the Proceeds of Crime Act for transactions of, or exceeding, US$15,000 (or its equivalent in any other currency) to the Financial Investigations Division.
Arising from the guilty plea, the charges against the businessmen were dropped.
Meanwhile, the case against Alliance Investment is to proceed and was set for mention on May 27.
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