Press Release No 10 –
Strengthening Partnership to Investigate Financial crimes
Press Release No. : 10/2017
Date : 17 May 2017
The Director of Fiji Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Mr Razim Buksh and the Commissioner of Police, Brigadier-General Sitiveni Qiliho met today and discussed opportunities to further improve networking between the two agencies. They also talked about operational issues in relation to profiling and investigation of money laundering and financial crimes in Fiji.
The Police and FIU play an important role in Fiji to combat complex white-collar criminal and money laundering activities. These activities are usually complex and involve several parties and financial transactions. Despite these issues, several cases, including large value cases involving millions of dollars in tainted funds have been successfully investigated resulting in convictions and forfeiture of the criminally-derived assets.
The two agencies discussed and noted strategies to more effectively detect and investigate such crimes through:
- timely exchanges of intelligence and information;
- opportunities for sharing of technical resources and expertise;
- timely use of freezing and restraining powers to prevent tainted funds being laundered;
- undertaking suspected unexplained wealth cases in collaboration with other agencies including the Fiji Revenue and Customs Authority (FRCA) and the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC);
- exploring the possibility of investigating tax evaders for money laundering offences;
- creating awareness and educating members of the public on new crime methods and typologies such as cybercrimes;
- seeking stronger co-operation from the financial institutions, particularly the commercial banks, to detect and report suspicious customers and their financial transactions.
Brigadier General Sitiveni Qiliho said that the Fiji Police Force has dedicated substantial resources in investigating complex financial crimes and has invested in the training of relevant officials including establishment of specialised units within the Fiji Police Force to investigate such crimes. Brigadier General Qiliho further said that the FIU was an important partner in the fight against money laundering.
FIU’s intelligence outputs are disseminated to, and used by, the following specialised units in the Fiji Police Force: Anti-Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Investigation Unit, Transnational
Crime Unit, Counter Terrorism Unit, Cybercrime Unit, Major Crime Unit, Public Sector & Commercial Crime/Economic Crime Unit, Police Intelligence Bureau, CID Headquarters and the Divisional Crime and Intelligence Offices.
Mr Buksh said that in 2016, 58 case dissemination reports involving $60.4 million were reported by the Fiji FIU to the Fiji Police Force for investigating possible money laundering activities which include but are not limited to cybercrime, LTA and visa impersonation cases, ATM skimming, internet banking fraud, trade based money laundering, advance fee frauds and other fraudulent and financial crimes. Mr Buksh said that the FIU provided assistance to the various Police Units relating to 68 on-going fraud-related investigations in 2016.