Al-Rawi wants US$123m in proceeds of crime returned to this country

ATTORNEY GENERAL Faris Al-Rawi on Thursday piloted a bill in the Senate which he said could help return to Trinidad and Tobago some US$123 million in money deemed to be the proceeds of crime.

Senators debated the Miscellaneous Provisions (FATF Compliance) Bill 2020, which amends several bills including the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA).

The explanatory notes to the bill say it will “empower the Minister of Finance, by order, subject to negative resolution of Parliament, to determine other areas or purposes for which money in the Seized Asset Fund may be used.”

Al-Rawi said, “The Seized Assets Fund has been established under the Proceeds of Crime Act.” He said money is already in the fund by the order of law courts.

The AG said the bill will broaden the use of money in the Seized Asset Fund from just community development, drug rehabilitation, law enforcement, compensation/restoration and use under the Civil Asset Management Authority.

“Now we are adding other purposes and specifically in a context where money is hard to gain, we are asking for these proceeds of crime to go for the benefit of society.

“This is critical because we already have several unexplained-wealth orders before the court.” He said some of these involve tens of millions of dollars.

“There are proceedings in the US as well where we are looking at up to US$123 million in potential proceeds of crime, to be repatriated to TT.

“Therefore the expansion of the use of that Seized Asset Committee in education, drug rehabilitation, in the benefit of our citizens, supervised by the Seized Asset Committee under law, is critical for our society, as our explain-your-wealth laws now bring home justice for TT.”

Earlier Al-Rawi said while TT came off FATF’s grey list in January, it was on a blacklist at European Council and European Union (EU) owing to TT’s lack of sanctions against entities that breach the POCA. He said the remedy is an administrative sanction by way of the bill.

He said he had written to the European Commission, which had indicated upon two legal enactments in TT (including bringing a Register of Trust), it would be prepared to re-rate TT into compliance. Al-Rawi said this would bring relief to any bank or entity in TT which had been de-risked in Europe.