Cambio bosses to face court today
Published:Wednesday | May 19, 2021 | 12:11 AM
Top-level executives at Sun Investments Limited who were recently charged with breaches of the Bank of Jamaica Act will appear in the St James Parish Court on Wednesday.
Chairman Vernal Campbell, Director Earl Swaby, and Manager Clifton Williams were charged over the period May 6-13 with breaches of Section 22A (ii and iii) of the Bank of Jamaica Act – buying, selling, borrowing and lending foreign currency without being an authorised dealer.
The charges were laid after the Financial Investigations Division (FID) and Constabulary Financial Unit (CFU) commenced a probe into their activities. A case file was prepared and submitted to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which ruled that the men and the company should be charged.
The FID’s principal director, Keith Darien, said that illegal cambios provide an avenue for criminals to convert ill-gotten funds without any of the due diligence which licensed entities are required to administer before conducting transactions.
“The prevalence of illegal cambios facilitates the entry of dirty money into our economy, undetected by regulators and law enforcement. This allows criminals to enjoy the spoils of their illicit activities,” said Darien.
“Simply put, this is dangerous and is in direct violation of our Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism regime. We will not allow the activities of a few to ruin the good work that the FID, the Bank of Jamaica, and other partners have been doing to remove Jamaica from the global Financial Action Task Force gray list,” he added.
Jamaica still remains on the European Union blacklist of countries whose regimes against money laundering, tax evasion and terrorist financing were not considered robust enough.
Taking steps to get Jamaica removed from the blacklist, the Government had amended the Revenue Administration Act last year to improve transparency and to bring its tax and financial reporting requirements in line with the demands of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.