Seminar targets money laundering

Drug trafficking and money laundering are twin crimes facing many small countries. And in order to fight these problems a two-day workshop is being held at the Radisson attended by immigration and customs officials, the police, magistrates, and prosecuting attorneys. Rory Field, Director of Public Prosecutions, says that educating a team of professionals is necessary to identify and prevent money laundering in Belize.

Rory Field, Director of Public Prosecutions

“Increasingly transnational crime is a problem which is affecting every country in the world. Clearly money launderers look for countries which they think have less policing, less investigation to actually do their money laundering in. We’re setting up a workshop today, we’ve got experts in from the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force in order to ensure that Belize isn’t a country that money launderers see as an easy touch.”

Manuel Vasquez, Financial Advisor, Anti-Money Laundering Prog.

“Belize has had money laundering legislation on its books for many years now and based on the record it hasn’t been used at all. So we’re here to lend technical support, practical training to all those stakeholders in this fight against money laundering and related crimes on how best to use the tools we already have on the books. And this all has to do with taking away profit from crime, it’s just another way of fighting criminality, profit motivated crimes. That’s what we’re talking about, drug trafficking, fraud, whether committed in Belize or internationally. The focus on this general strategy is when you hit criminals in the pocketbook you’re by and large getting very close to the people at the top of criminal organisation because they ‘re in it for the money. So it’s a new way of fighting criminal activity and train the relevant enforcement agencies in Belize to use the tools they have at their disposal.”

Vasquez says that the Money Laundering Prevention Act of Belize requires banks to report any suspicious or illegal transaction in their client’s accounts to the proper authorities. In case you were wondering, the term money laundering refers to the channelling of illegally earned “dirty” cash into investments or transactions that make the money appear legitimate and “clean.”