Papali'I T Scanlan: Preventing money laundering and financing of
terrorism in Samoa
Speech by Mr Papali'I T Scanlan, Governor of the Central Bank of Samoa, at the Anti-Money
Laundering and Countering Terrorist Financing Activities Workshop for Non-Profit
Organizations in Samoa, Apia, 13 May 2009.
* * *
Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good Morning.
At the outset, I would like to welcome all of you to this Anti Money Laundering and
Countering Terrorist Financing Activities workshop, which is specifically designed for
NonProfit Organizations (or NPOs).
Thank you for accepting our invitation, and especially for sparing the time to be with us this
morning.
The main objective of this one day workshop is to promote and enhance your individual
Organization's awareness and understanding of the important aspects involved in fighting the
offences of money laundering and the financing of terrorism in Samoa.
I understand that there are more than four hundred (400) NPOs registered with the Ministry
of Commerce, Industry and Labor (MCIL). However, we have adopted a selective approach
with the assistance of MCIL in identifying yourselves, as being the important entities to kick
start this "Awareness Raising Program."
On that note, I would like to thank the MCIL for the support provided to the Central Bank in
coordinating this important event.
Let me also thank several representatives of the various Government Ministries who are here
with us today. We appreciate your accepting of our request to share with the participants
your knowledge and experience in this field of your Ministry's work, which reflects your
regulatory role towards preventing and/or detecting criminals offences, including money
laundering.
This is the first Workshop of its kind on this important topic, with emphasis on the role of the
NPOs to detect and prevent the offences of money laundering or terrorist financing activities.
Money laundering and the financing of terrorists are problems that should concern us all.
They are not problems for only the Government and the law enforcement agencies to worry
about. Rather, the public sector, the business community, the private sector and even
ordinary citizens must play a role in combating these illegal activities.
This Workshop is therefore opportune, as it covers one of the important sectors, other than
financial institutions. I am referring of course to yourselves, the Non-profit Organization
Sector.
Non-profit organization sector
There is a strong belief internationally that the non-profit organizations sector is one of the
more vulnerable sectors, which criminals would try and exploit to conduct their illegal
activities without attracting much attention.
And, some of the reasons for such vulnerability relate to generally weak management
structures and the lack of regulatory supervision over NPOs operation. Many jurisdictions
have relatively low institutional capacity to monitor NPOs and detect their being used for
money laundering and by terrorist.
Some jurisdictions even indicate their unwillingness to impose a regulatory requirement on
this Sector. In any case, there are several key questions that need answers to properly
identify NPOs and their activities in a country. These questions include:
i) What is an NPOs sector ?
ii) How many NPOs are in operation?
iii) What types are they (religious, cultural, educational, sports).
iv) What activities do they perform?
v) Are there registration requirements and record keeping requirements for NPOs?
vi) Are there reporting requirements?
vii) Are there mechanisms to verify funds are spent as advertised and planned?
So it is fair to say that there are major challenges and practical issues that need careful
consideration when the issue of money laundering and terrorist financing is discussed from
the perspective of NPOs.
The global concern
Let me now briefly highlight some of the concerns that have emerged globally in the area of
money laundering and terrorist financing.
The goal of a large number of criminal acts is to generate a profit for the individual or group
that carry out these acts. Money laundering is the processing of these criminal proceeds to
disguise their illegal origin. This process is of critical importance, as it enables the criminal to
enjoy these profits without jeopardizing their source.
Illegal arms sales, smuggling and the activities of organized crime, including, for example,
drug trafficking, human trafficking and prostitution rings, can generate huge amounts of cash.
Embezzlement, bribery and computer fraud schemes can also produce large profits and
create the incentive to "legitimize" the ill-gotten gains through money laundering.
When a criminal activity generates substantial profits, the individual or group involved must
find a way to control the funds without attracting attention to the underlying activity or the
persons involved. Criminals do this by disguising the sources, changing the forms of the
funds, or moving the said funds to a place where they are less likely to attract attention.
In response to mounting concern over money laundering, the Financial Action Task Force on
money laundering (FATF) was established by the G-7 Summit in Paris in 1989 to develop a
coordinated international response. One of the first task of the FATF was to develop
Recommendations, (40 in all, plus 9 Special Recommendations) which set out the measures
national governments should take to implement effective anti-money laundering programs.
The FATF works closely with other international bodies involved in fight against money
laundering. And, one of those international organizations is the Asia Pacific Group on Money
Laundering (the APG) in which Samoa is a member.
The APG was officially established as an autonomous regional anti-money laundering body
in February 1997 for Asia and the Pacific region at the Fourth Asia/Pacific Money Laundering
Symposium in Bangkok, Thailand. This was the culmination of a process of "awareness
raising" in the Asia Pacific region initiated by the FATF as part of its global strategy.
To date, the APG has 39 member countries and a number of international and regional
observers, including the United Nations, the IMF and the World Bank.
As a member of the APG, Samoa is required to undertake a domestic review of its NPO
sector to determine the degree of vulnerability to money laundering and terrorist financing
activities.
I should stress that this workshop is part and parcel of such a review.
Under the conditions of membership, all APG members have committed to implement the
FATF Forty Recommendations and Nine Special Recommendations.
Special Recommendation VIII relates to non-profit organizations.
SRVIII calls on all countries to "review the adequacy of laws and regulations that relate to
entities that can be abused for money laundering and financing of terrorism. Non-profit
organizations are particularly vulnerable and countries should ensure that they cannot be
misused:
i) by terrorist organizations posing as legitimate entities;
ii) to exploit legitimate entities as conduits for terrorist financing, including for the
purpose of escaping asset freezing measures; and
iii) to conceal or obscure the illegal diversion of funds intended for legitimate purposes to
terrorist organizations."
What is the scale of the problem?
By its very nature, money laundering occurs outside of the normal range of economic
statistics. Nevertheless, as with other aspects of underground economic activity, rough
estimates have been put forward to give some sense of the scale to the problem.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), for example, has stated that the aggregate size of
money laundering in the world could be somewhere between two to five percent of the
world's Gross Domestic Products (GDP). And using latest statistics, these percentages
would indicate that money laundering range between 2 to 3 Trillion US Dollars.
The program
A quick look at today's Workshop agenda indicates that you have an intensive program
ahead of you. You will be covering a lot of important details such as; what money laundering
is, the methods that criminals apply to hide their proceeds of crime, what effects money
laundering could have on economic development, the connection with society at large and
efforts Government is doing to combat money laundering.
So, I do not intent to dwell too much in those details. But suffice to say that Samoa is
committed to fight the offence of money laundering and countering terrorist financing
activities that might occur on our shores. We will prosecute criminals that intent to use our
financial system to hide their ill-gotten proceeds.
Legislative framework
Samoa passed its Money Laundering Prevention Act in 2000. This Act was however
repealed and replaced by the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2007. The latter legislation
provides a more comprehensive legislative framework for the Samoa Money Laundering
Prevention Authority (MLPA) to actively investigate any suspicious transactions that are
alleged to involve money laundering. The Suppression and Prevention of Terrorism Act
2002, contains provisions for countering terrorist financing activities.
In addition to the above legislations, Parliament has also passed the Proceeds of Crime Act
2007 and Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 2007. These two legislation provides
explicit and appropriate powers for our law enforcement agencies to conduct investigation,
obtain relevant evidence for prosecution, share and exchange information with the relevant
law enforcement agencies (both local and overseas), as well as provide mutual assistance to
other jurisdictions on criminal matters.
We have established a Money Laundering Prevention Task Force which comprises of the
Attorney General, the CEOs of the Ministry of Revenue, the Prime Minister's Office, the
Samoa International Finance Authority, the Ministry of Police and myself as Head of the
Money Laundering Prevention Authority.
We have also established a Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) within the Financial Institutions
Department of the Central Bank, directly responsible for coordinating and undertaking the
implementation of our AML/CFT regime. Our FIU has powers under the Money Laundering
Prevention Act 2007 to receive and analyse all Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) from
all financial institutions or any person(s) suspicious of money laundering offence in Samoa.
Get rich-quick operators in the region
I want to talk briefly about the so called "get rich-quick schemes" that have emerged recently
in the Pacific Region.
Pacific Island Countries, including Samoa, recognize the critical role that domestic and
overseas private investors as well as the inflow of capital, knowledge and technology have
played and will continue to play in the development of the region.
Genuine investors are of course welcomed. But, in recent years, there appears to have been
an increase in the number of operators of dubious financial background who move from
country to country taking advantage of gullible governments and private individuals and
entities. Their intention is to defraud governments and people by convincing them to accept
and/or invest in get-rich-quick projects that are later proven to be just pure scams.
I should mention that we have come across a wide range of scams in the past, some of
which have been repeated in several countries by different or most probably, the same
operators. In the event, sharing of information about such experiences would benefit us all in
our efforts to protect our financial system, not to mention our people, from such abuses.
The features of scams touted around the Pacific are mostly similar, except a few cosmetic
variations in some cases. Usually, substantial benefits are promised by the get-rich-quick
operators in return for payments made by the victims or some contingent liabilities accepted
by Governments and private individuals up front.
Let me state some examples for your reference:
i. Letters of Guarantee
ii. A loan for Indigenous Development
iii. A loan to a private company
iv. Sale of Passports
v. The Nigerian Scam
vi. Lottery winnings
(The last two on the list have come up quite often through the internet and email messages. )
Capacity building
Let me end with a word on capacity building.
We can have the best laws to combat money laundering, the best system to prosecute the
offenders but if we lack the human capacity to implement them, then our efforts will be in
vain. Hence, building local capacity must therefore be at the forefront of our efforts.
The same concern applies to NPOs. That is, building capacities within the structures of our
NPOs to be able to identify suspicious transactions and reporting them to the Money
Laundering Prevention Authority (MLPA) is an important feature of Samoa's anti-money
laundering and countering terrorist financing activities regime.
I understand that the MCIL may need to incorporate in its existing legislation some
requirements for NPOs to comply with anti-money laundering measures and requirements.
Some key requirements would include proper customer identification.
That is, the NPOs must have a good understanding of who their customers are and their
sources of funds as well as the purpose of conducting financial transactions through or with
them. Another important requirement relate to the proper keeping of books and records that
would assist any investigation that may involve information or records of NPOs.
Conclusion
In concluding, I should reiterate that it is everyone's responsibility to do something about
protecting Samoa from the offence of money laundering and terrorist financing activities.
And, although one of Government's principal and ongoing task is to increase public
awareness, there is still a lack of common knowledge within the public domain of what
constitutes a money laundering offence.
Indeed, such is further complicated by the fact that this invisible crime operates on the fringe
of society, acting as a bridge between the underworld and the rest.
Hence, we need a collaborative approach to work together to overcome such challenges that
could damage the image and reputation of Samoa's financial system, as well as the good
standing of NPOs in the country.
I now have the pleasure of officially opening this Anti-Money Laundering and Countering
Terrorist Financing Activities Workshop.