Banking Secrecy and Offshore Financial Centers by Young Mary Alice;

Author:Young, Mary Alice;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1125183
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

However, what is a competent authority? One must assume that it is up to the discretion of the member country to decide the meaning of this term and its application, because it is left as ambiguous in the 19 Recommendations. However, it is taken for granted and morally right that the law enforcement authorities dedicated to anti-narcotics and anti-money laundering efforts are the most appropriate recipients of confiscated proceeds of crime in the Caribbean.

Regionality?

As has been argued above, one of the raison d’êtres for a regional implementation of the international standards is to allow for a response that takes into account the regional context within which the international standards are designed to operate. The discussion above shows that the 19 Recommendations and the Model Regulations are shaped regionally in their approach to confiscation, because of their response to the Caribbean drug problem. However, there is a lack of cohesiveness between the two regional agreements, and one of the reasons for this may be that the countries which they target are not very homogenous. The states within the Caribbean region often face very different problems and are economically and politically diverse. Furthermore, the 19 Recommendations actually reflect the 40 Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force and therefore it may be seen that it is difficult to tailor the 19 Recommendations so specifically to the region, when they are heavily influenced by the global anti-money laundering standards.

Regional organizations including the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force and the Organization of American States advocate the use of confiscation as a method of deterrence against drug-related crime, but confiscation is only effective if those rules and regulations are correctly implemented by Member States’ law enforcement agencies. Pastor and Fletcher comment on the correct use of confiscation laws in the Caribbean as vital to the strength and security of a stable region when they state that, ‘[i]n addition the region needs stringent legislation providing heavy fines and long-term imprisonment for drug traffickers. Their property ought to be held when they are arrested and confiscated if they are found guilty’. 41

Certainly, it is well known that violent crime in the Caribbean is linked to money laundering and drug trafficking, with much of the violent crime blamed on deported, criminal, non-American nationals, who have been shipped back to the Caribbean, arguably introducing ‘new skills and transnational networks into the region that contribute to drug trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping and immigrant smuggling’. 42 However, the jurisdictions where violent crime is perceived as increasing are where the criminal organizations are situated and not where they launder their money. Violent, aggressive, crimes tend not to occur in the wealthy jurisdictions of the Anglophone jurisdictions such as the Caymans but in the economically struggling Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. 43 Regional confiscation laws can work to appropriate the proceeds of crime in offshore financial centers, at the same time sending out a very clear message to organized crime groups who utilize the rest of the Caribbean as a playground: violent and organized crime is not acceptable.

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