31/07/2014
Anguilla was represented by the Head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) at the 22nd Egmont Plenary meeting held in Lima, Peru between the 1st and 6th of June 2014. Representatives of FIUs from 115 countries, from the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania, were in also attendance at this important international conference.
The ‘key note’ speaker at the conference was Mr Raymond Baxter of ‘Global Finance Integrity’*. He informed the Plenary that for each US$ 1 of foreign aid sent to developing countries, US$ 10 in illicit money flows abroad, facilitated by secrecy in the global financial system. As well as bleeding the world’s poorest economies this aids crime, corruption and tax evasion globally.
During the Plenary, along with other Heads of FIUs, Detective Inspector McDonald attended training sessions which included ‘the Role of the FIU in Corruption Investigations and Asset Recovery’. A case study was presented by the Head of the Ukraine FIU Mr Radzhami Dzhan in which he discussed the work of his unit in tracing US$ 9 billion stolen from his country by members of the former Ukrainian regime.
Sixty bilateral co-operation agreements were signed between Egmont member countries during the course of the conference. Detective Inspector McDonald, on behalf of Anguilla FIU, signed Memoranda of Understanding with his counterparts from Japan and the Russian Federation. The signing of these two agreements signals the willingness of the FIUs from both Russia and Japan to work together with the FIU of Anguilla in order to exchange intelligence and information about criminals and terrorists who might be abusing international financial structures.
