Gold transactions to soon come under money laundering laws

Mar 11, 2023 News

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Kaieteur News – Guyana has embarked on a five year strategy to review its Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Laws, with a view to ensuring compliance with all international standards requirements.

To this end, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, SC has signaled that the sale of the precious mineral gold, to the Guyana Board, will soon come under the ambit of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) as a reporting entity.

The FIU was first established in 2004 under the Money Laundering Prevention Act of 2000, which was since repealed and replaced by the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Act in 2009 with its core functions including requesting, receiving, analyzing, and disseminating information on suspicious transaction reports and other information relating to money laundering, terrorist financing, or the proceeds of crime.

Listed among the strategic objectives of the government’s National Policy and Strategy, to strengthen the anti-money laundering framework, is the inclusion of the Guyana Gold Board which is required to buy all gold produced in Guyana as a Reporting Entity.

Gold smuggling in Guyana has over the years been a source of concern for the authorities with hundreds of pounds of the precious metal found to have been illegally transported out of the country over time.

In 2016, the country made international headlines when a vessel was found in Curacao with some 476 pounds of gold that had allegedly been smuggled from Guyana.

Additionally, there are numerous reports of gold being smuggled across Guyana’s porous borders into neighbouring Suriname, Brazil and even further afield.

The Guyana Gold Board is the regulator and AML/CFT supervisor for ‘Dealers in Precious Metals’ and as such, under the new framework, government is also looking to revise the Tax Act and mining laws and regulations to bring greater clarity and practicality to the licensing procedures and regulation of gold and diamond dealers.

Additionally, the Gold Board Act is expected to also be amended, to provide for first time offenders to be penalized.

Importantly, the National Policy and Strategy also proposes to revise the Tax Act and Mining Laws and regulations to bring greater clarity and practicality to the licensing procedures and regulation of gold and diamond dealers.

Other proposed changes to Guyana’s AML/CFT regime include drafting asset sharing legislation to govern the management of seized, confiscated and forfeited assets in compliance with international standards.

Taking into account evolving technology, the administration will also be drafting legislation for the regulation andsupervision of Virtual Assets and that Virtual AssetsService Providers (VASPs) will be developed.

This, to ensure the proper framework is in place tomanage and mitigate the Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing as well as the Proliferation of Financingof weapons of mass destruction risks, associated with the new technologies, inkeeping with the international Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) standards.

Asset recovery and forfeiture is also expected to feature prominently in the new regime, with the new policy codifying its support of asset recovery provisions in theAML/CFT Act, and to develop or strengthen legislationwhich also provide for civil confiscation andcivil forfeiture, as an additional measure within Guyana’s existing sanctions regime.

Additionally, as part of its strategic objectives, Government has also identified enacting Legislation or Regulation establishing anational counter-terrorism department withexplicit counter-terrorism portfolio, adequatehuman, financial and other resources andongoing specialized training for employees.

The newly adopted National Policy and Strategy for Combating Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing, and the Financing of Proliferation’ of weapons of mass destruction, was compiled having assessed the risks to the country over the years, seeking to ascertain the threats of money laundering, terrorist financing and the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Having assessed these risks by conducting two National Risk Assessments (NRAs), Cabinet recently adopted the comprehensive ‘National Policy.’

According to the document, the Policy and Strategy, is a five-year plan that aims to further enhance and improve Guyana’s AML/CFT/PF regime by addressing the risks identified in second NRA Report and implement the strategy in conjunction with Guyana’s Risk Based Action Plan.

Guyana is a member of FATF under which falls the Caribbean Financial Action Taskforce (CFATF) of which the country is a member, and as such, would have to subscribe to set criteria prescribed by the institutions.

With this in mind, government said its new policy seeks to ensure that Guyana achieves a high level of compliance with the FATF Standards on combating ML, TF and PF; “and to effectively meet the key objectives of Guyana’s AML/CFT system in practice.”

To this end, the National Policy and Strategy provides a guide of the actions required to be undertaken to improve Guyana’s effectiveness in mitigating ML, TF, and PF.

“This National Policy and Strategy is a dynamic document reflecting Guyana’s efforts to combat ML, TF and PF risks and the progress in those endeavours. It will be reviewed every three (3) years to determine whether any amendments may be required to properly satisfy each objective,” it said.

Those identified as part of the process includes; The Attorney General’s Chambers, the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Guyana Police Force, the Guyana Revenue Authority, the Ministries of Natural Resources and Finance and AML/CFT Supervisory.

According to Minister Nandlall, “we recognise that we cannot operate in a vacuum, and cooperation is important domestically and internationally, particularly with our regional counterparts where effective and timely information sharing can make a vast difference in the detection and prevention of all crime, more specifically, financial and organised crime.”

He said too, in the document that “additionally, we recognize that this National AML/CFT/PF Policy and Strategy can only be successful when linked to the strategic objectives of other important elements in the battle against money laundering (ML), terrorist financing (TF) and proliferation financing (PF).”

To this end, he said the administration has been implementing measures to combat related and predicate criminal offences.

These efforts, Nandlall said, have been recognised, “resulting in Guyana enjoying improved rankings in international reports such as the United States’ Department of State International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) and the Transparency International Corruption Index. Similarly, Guyana has been removed from the European Union’s Blacklist on Taxation.”

With the implementation of the newly adopted National Policy and Strategy, Nandlall is of the view it will not only bring “us in compliance with international obligations devolving upon Guyana, but will be the menu of organised strategic and targeted actions, that will create a robust and resilient protective network, that will insulate Guyana, and in particular, its financial system from being contaminated by the proceeds of crime.”

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• Anil Nandlall, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, gold, laundering, money, SC, transactions

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