Big money passing for new notes

National Security Minister Stuart Young.
National Security Minister Stuart Young.

SOME of the people seeking to change their money to the new polymer $100 notes have been bringing in large sums of money.

National Security Minister Stuart Young said one person, who claimed to be a barber, showed up at a bank with $1 million.

He was speaking Thursday during the post-Cabinet media conference at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann's.

Young said Thursday was the third day since the new notes were made available, and very unusual transactions have already been flagged. He stressed there are law enforcement officers who are part of the process and are stationed where they need to be based on previous intelligence and the very fluid situation.

"Some of the examples would shock any law-abiding citizen. (We have) persons turning up with significant amounts of cash, and when they are asked about the source of funds some of the explanations are very difficult from a plausibility point of view."

He noted the head of the Financial Intelligence Branch and the head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, in a media conference, stressed that money laundering is a criminal offence and assisting in money laundering is also a criminal offence.

"And that was putting up a marker and warning everyone in TT– don't fall prey to being part of money laundering. We have had quite a few instances of persons turning up and claiming to be of professions that you would be very surprised for them to be carrying around a million dollars in cash. Some with more than a million dollars in cash."

He stressed the law that is already in existence, including explain your wealth, deals with these instances and the Government did not create any new law other than the legislation to facilitate the demonetisation process.

He said some people were placing orders in cash and then cancelling the orders and asking to be reimbursed with a cheque.

"We've had somebody, for example, turn up and say he was a barber with over a million dollars in cash. That is a very expensive set of haircuts. But again, I am not casting any aspersions – that is for law enforcement to deal with.”

Asked how many transactions had been flagged in the past two days, Young said he could not say at this point.

He reported that there have been instances of counterfeit money being flagged but he could not go into details.

Young also said some of the videos of people being robbed for the new notes were fake, but there have been a couple of "isolated incidents" which he did not provide further details on.

He reported that the commercial banks told him, in the first two days $150 million worth of new notes have been pushed into the system. Another bank said $120 million had been pushed into the system.

He also apologised for the inconvenience people have experienced during the exchange.

Finance Minister Colm Imbert said issues are arising with the change and the Finance Ministry was speaking with the four major banks on a daily basis and with the Central Bank Governor.

"We are looking at solutions to the issues."

He reported that people are coming into banks with very large quantities of cash, $500,000 or more in some cases.

"Some of these people, I can't say many because I don't have a detailed report of it yet, are finding it difficult to fill out a source of funds declaration to indicate where they got the money from. So that's posing a little challenge for the commercial banks. Because if someone walks in with a million dollars and says 'I got this from savings over the years' or something like that, it is proving to be a little challenge for the bank."

He explained in cases where there is difficulty with the source of funds declaration people were advised to go the Central Bank to change the notes or receive some consideration. He added the Central Bank required a form of ID, a proof of address and had its own source of funds declaration and it was not a "free for all".

Imbert said the Finance Ministry was being advised by legal counsel every step of the way and there is an offence of "tipping off". He explained that if there is a suspicious transaction a bank official cannot tell the person that their transaction is being flagged and it similarly restricted what the ministers could say.

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"Big money passing for new notes"

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