Attorney for C.I.B.L. Questions F.I.U.’s Application under M.L.T.P. Act

Dean Barrow

Senior Counsel Barrow raised a preliminary objection to the application brought forth by the F.I.U.  He contended that the F.I.U. is not entitled to make an application under the Money Laundering and Terrorism Prevention Act, an objection which Magistrate Debbie Rogers did not uphold. Here is Barrow’s response to Magistrate Roger’s ruling.

Dean Barrow, Attorney-at-law

“You heard the evidence of Inspector Gian Young, he was the one that led the investigation, he was the one that detained and counted the money, after he gave it over to the custody of the F.I.U., but that is not as it were is the foundation for the originating application for the continued seizure. The basis for that is that the person that originally seized it or the branch of law enforcement that seized it must show that it had a reasonable suspicion that allowed the suspicions of the money and that then convince the court it is necessary to hold on to the money so that investigation might been completed. How the F.I.U. gets into it when you look at the language in the appropriate section for the Money Laundering Act absolutely defeats me. It can’t be that because police men are attached to the F.I.U., even though the police officers attached to the F.I.U. were not the ones that carried out the seizure, that simply because they have police men attached to them that they can be the one to move the application for the continued detention for what was seized not by them but by the trafficking in persons unit. That is a fundamental issue and I believe the magistrate is way wrong in saying in effect they are all part of parcel of law enforcement. No, there are different roles given by different pieces of legislation to different units. As I pointed out the F.I.U. has under its own act the authority to do search and seizure and to move for the attachment they find in consequence of search and seizure. But, this is not that.”