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SOCU advised to secure cash-sniffer dogs
A British crime expert has recommended cash-sniffing dogs for the airports and borders areas to help fight money laundering.
Guyana is rapidly moving to become a major oil producer with commercial activities slated to start in 2020.
However, the country is still in the phase of introducing certain critical legislations that will govern the oil and gas industry.
The legislations have to be drafted, consulted on and passed in the House, before made law.
Hand-in-hand with that will be the necessary regulatory agencies in place.
There is also a role for the police Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), admits Dr. Sam Sittlington.
The financial crimes expert who is back in Guyana to assist SOCU in building its capacity and reduce its backlogs, was being questioned on Tuesday.
He has some advice for Guyana— be prepared.
The advice would not be unusual against the numerous stories of high-level corruption around the globe in connection with the oil industry.
Tracking the monies has never been easy but oil producing countries have been developing mechanisms to make it harder to hide monies.
According to Sittlington, Guyana would urgently need to introduce the necessary procedures in place to target public procurement, including that of equipment.
Guyana would also need to ensure that the proper procedures are strictly followed when it comes to the oil industry.
This will include introducing accepted controls to prevent any forms of malfeasance in public office.
He said that SOCU, an arm of the police which targets financial crimes, is there to investigate crimes, and once the necessary resources and cooperation are in place, with access to bank accounts and other information, including tax information, the entity would be in better position to investigate the crimes.
He explained that money laundering is subsequent to a criminal act— drugs, tax evasion, fraud, among other things.
According to Sittlington, SOCU’s role is to investigate the money laundering aspect but because of the lack of experience in this area, it had been doing everything. “And that puts more pressure on them and these types of cases.”
In investigations of financial crimes, the money trail has to be followed. The official who will be in Guyana until March 2020, said that criminals are making things harder.
They are using internet, foreign jurisdictions, offshore companies and even trust company to launder monies from criminal activities.
There may be money laundering from gold smuggling in Guyana and “maybe” in oil in the future, he said. Other activities of money laundering may also stem from smuggling across the borders.
One case last year caught the attention of SOCU— the smuggling of gold through the airport.
Sittlington said he had made recommendations two years ago for authorities here to place “cash dogs” at the airports and border areas to sniff out monies being smuggled.
“Cash dogs”, he said, have been very successful in fighting money laundering in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe.
There have been a number of other recommendations made but not yet implemented in Guyana, the SOCU advisor disclosed.
These include the introduction of an in-house lawyer at SOCU and a more integral role from five special prosecutors hired to assist investigators.
SOCU is facing significant challenges in bringing cases to prosecution with Director of Public Prosecutions and the Police Legal Advisor returning a number of high profile case files for further work.
Sittlington is being paid by the British government under a cooperation agreement to boost Guyana’s crime fighting capacity.
The advisor says he will be observing investigations and reviewing files to assist investigators.
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