FIU uncovers $2B ‘dirty money’ trail

Nov 06, 2025 News

…says cash linked to bribery, tax evasion, gold smuggling, money laundering

(Kaieteur News) – More than $2 billion in suspicious transactions linked to bribery, tax evasion, precious metal smuggling, and money laundering were flagged by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in 2024, according to data contained in its latest annual report.

Matthew Langevine, Director of Financial Intelligence Unit (GUYANA)

The report shows that seven cases of corruption and bribery accounted for $786.45 million, eight cases of tax evasion totaled $583.45 million, nine cases of smuggling precious metals amounted to $485.64 million, and six cases of money laundering reached $201.52 million, a combined total of just over $2.05 billion.

Other suspicious activities included eight cases of drug trafficking valued at $686.33 million, sixty cases of general fraud worth $245.55 million, and seven cases of investment fraud exceeding $3.3 billion, among other activities.

Overall, the FIU received 208 Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) in 2024, up from 180 the previous year, a 15.6% increase.

According to section 18(4) of the (Add spelling) AML/CFT Act a reporting entity must send STRs to the FIU Guyana whenever it suspects or has reasonable grounds to suspect that funds, a transaction or attempted transaction are connected to the proceeds of criminal activity, money laundering, terrorist financing offences or when funds are suspected of being used for terrorist acts or by terrorist organisations.

Notably, the STR must be submitted as soon as possible but not later than three days after forming that suspicion and wherever possible before the transaction is carried out.

Additionally, reporting entities are required to take reasonable measures to ascertain the purpose of the transaction, the origin and ultimate destination of the funds involved and the identity and address, of any ultimate beneficiary.

The two most commonly cited suspicious activities in STRs received were general fraud, and structuring transactions. FIU said this indicates a continued trend of fraudulent and structuring activities as key drivers of suspicious financial behaviour. Notably, those two types of suspicious activities accounted for 39.4 per cent of all STRs submitted to the FIU in 2024.

While there was a 15.6% rise in the number of STRs reported in 2024, the overall value of those STRs fell by over 90%. It was reported that the total value of STRs fell sharply from $153.3 billion in 2023 to $14.2 billion in 2024.

“This was driven by the fact that most of the fraud-related STRs originated from the subsector of Payment Service Providers (PSPs), where the individual transaction values are relatively lower, when compared to transactions and financial activity from other regulated sectors,” it was stated.

Suspected activities and value of STRs compared

Moreover, FIU said that it is not only the high and increasing number of STR received, but also the increase in ‘intelligence reports’ shared with law enforcement that were related to various types of fraud.

“Many of these cases were perpetrated via social media and / or digital platforms. It is for this reason, we focused on increasing the knowledge of the public and more importantly training and providing feedback to reporting entities on these emerging trends, through typologies and red flags. This effort allowed for preventative, corrective and / or mitigating measures to be taken in a timely manner,” it was stated.

“The achievements of the unit during 2024 have brought great pride and satisfaction not only to the FIU team, but to all our AMLCFT partners locally, regionally and internationally. These achievements will serve collectively as a further inspiration to strengthen our resolve to deliver on our mandate to aid in the detection, prevention and deterrence of ML, TF and PF,” FIU stated in the 2024 annual report.

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bribery, dirty money, Financial Intelligence, gold smuggling, Matthew Langevine, money laundering, tax evasion

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