Government to go after assets of convicts acquired during life of crime - AG

Government to go after assets of convicts acquired during life of crime – AG

Oct 10, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – Attorney General Anil Nandlall on Monday signaled government will be placing a greater emphasis on civil forfeiture and will go after the assets of convicts acquired from a life of crime.

He was at the time addressing a gathering at the opening of the Regional Security System (RSS) Asset Recovery Unit (ARU) and Asset Recovery Work Shop for Judicial Officers. The AG said, “If you look at the programme that is before us, you will obviously recognise a deep emphasis on civil forfeiture and on areas such as crypto currency and those issues now emerging in the financial sector as part of financial investigation.”

He went on to say that in the past at a supposed philosophical and policy level “there wasn’t much focus on civil forfeiture- persons charged with criminal offences, go through the court and the focus has always been to convict for the offences charged, and not necessarily pursue available remedies in terms of going after the assets that may have been acquired from proceeds of crime or that particular offence before the courts.”

Attorney General, Anil Nandlall

Nandlall admitted that indeed there was not much legislative backing and the “Forfeiture Laws” reside in the Customs Act and to some extent the Narcotics Psychotropic Substances Act a 1988 legislation, while the Customs Act is probably pre-independence. “We had quite a dated statutory regime for Civil Forfeiture that has since changed, as the Executive Director of the RSS pointed out. Last August, just a couple of months ago I piloted through the National Assembly a very comprehensive regime of Civil Forfeiture provisions, as part of our AMLCFT amendment act of 2023.”

The AG thanked the RSSARU for their significant contributions in helping the government to craft the legislation relevant to this regime. Saying that government will now have to orient themselves from a policy perspective and then they will have to undergo training to ensure that they know how to approach what he believes is a fairly new area of the law.

A mutual assessment was recently completed by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force and civil forfeiture was flagged for attention. The AG wasted no time when the opportunity presented itself to host the Regional Security System (RSS) Asset Recovery Unit (ARU) and Asset Recovery Work Shop for Judicial Officers workshop in getting things underway as government hopes to build capacity.

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Anil Nandlall, Asset Recovery Unit (ARU), Asset Recovery Work Shop for Judicial Officers, Attorney General, Regional Security System (RSS)

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