Members of several state agencies that are tasked with intelligence gathering and investigating and prosecuting financial crimes recently participated in a Financial Intelligence Training course.
As part of the ongoing exercises by the Guyana Police Force to enhance capacity and skills of its members, it conducted the Financial Intelligence Training course at its Training Academy last week.
There was broad-based participation from a number of senior officers from Special Operations Crime Unit (SOCU) Customs Anti-Narcotic Unit (CANU), Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Guyana Defence Force (GDF).
The Training Course also had a regional flavor with officers from Trinidad and Tobago in attendance and through tele-conferencing facilities, the participation of officers from St Kitts and Jamaica.
Four senior officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the USA tutored the participants on a number of topics including money laundering schemes, terror financing, illicit trade-based transfer systems, charting financial data and financial profiles investigation methods.
The Training Course was fully sponsored by the US Government.
Speaking to the graduands, the US Ambassador Mr. Perry Hollaway emphasized the need for capacity building in these areas in Guyana and the CARICOM region and restated the US’s continued support in these efforts.
Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan who also spoke to the graduands thanked the US Government for its support, maintaining that such a training program could not have come at a more critical juncture since there is an emergence of a variety of financial crimes in Guyana for which attention must be paid.
The Minister bluntly stated, ”Crimes of all types do damage to the society at large. Crimes against the person and property instill fear. We are doing the best we possibly can to reduce those. But financial and economic crimes, too, can damage our economy and even our democracy. These too we must do all in our power to halt. This Training Programme is an ongoing process in that regard”.
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