Resumen de Prensa
30/11/2007
El uso incorrecto del sistema propiciará el blanqueo de
capitales (News Day)
The grim warning by the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) of Trinidad and Tobago,
Osbourne Nurse, that the country’s “vibrant capital
markets” could be tainted through misuse of TT’s financial
system to facilitate money laundering, is timely.
Our “vibrant capital markets”, Nurse drove home, helped
to fuel Trinidad and Tobago’s economy and hold the savings
of our nation’s investors. Neither their importance nor the
negative impact of their being tainted should be underestimated.
Nurse advised, however, that the SEC was in the process of developing
a regime of rules and guidelines designed to focus attention on
money laundering and counter terrorist financing.
Although the SEC Chairman CEO appeared on the surface not to adopt
a tough, no nonsense approach, yet there was no misunderstanding
either the serious nature of the approach of the Commission to money
laundering nor the intent of the steps being taken by it to combat
this clearly criminal activity and its potential for harm to the
country’s efforts to attract investors. The SEC, he offered,
hoped to ensure that all firms in the Securities industry instituted
policies and procedures to combat money laundering.
Additionally, Nurse tactfully declared, the SEC hoped that its
interest would spur Securities firms which already had anti-money
laundering programmes to ensure that they were being implemented,
and spoke of standards of disclosure which must be met in relation
both to nominee accounts and trust accounts.
The measures being instituted by the Commission would bolster the
current Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), to which Securities dealers
and investment managers were subject, Nurse reminded, describing
the measures as significant compliance obligations and anti-money
laundering provisions. He added that they faced grave risks if others
laundered money through their institutions, including fines as high
as $10 million and $25 million, for specified offences, as well
as forfeiture provisions under the Act.
Nurse, who was addressing a breakfast meeting of KPMG on “Money
Laundering — Risk and Mitigation In The Securities Industry,
slammed money laundering, describing it as a crime deserving of
serious attention by securities firms. He noted that securities
firms were major global financial institutions, in the sense that
they were either parts of global institutions or accessible through
their network of relationships and contacts.
The volume of money laundered which flows through the international
Securities industry, Nurse would point out, is quantified in frighteningly
astronomical terms of trillions of dollars annually. And although
the SEC Head did not state this, a not insubstantial portion of
this sum is, undoubtedly, provided for by the returns of the international
narcotics trade and at the expense of hundreds of millions of lives
and crippled futures.
Volver |
