ewart s williams : governance, regulation and financial crime prevention opening remarks by mr ewart s williams, governor of the central bank of trinidad and tobago, at the 2010 regional forum “ governance, regulation and financial crime prevention ”, port - of - spain, 9 august 2010. * * * i would like to thank the sponsors, the international governance and risk institute for inviting me to provide some opening remarks to what should be a most stimulating forum, given the impressive array of presenters. your seminar theme is about “ financial crime prevention ” and while many of your sessions would be on money laundering and terrorist financing, i am pleased to see that the forum will cover other areas of financial crime. i would like to make some brief comments on some aspects of corporate financial crime which appear to be on the increase in trinidad and tobago. i will also say something about anti - money laundering efforts here in trinidad and tobago. for convenience, financial crime is defined to cover any non - violent crime resulting in financial loss. this definition will easily cover fraud on the public, credit card fraud, improper self - dealing, stock market manipulation and other breaches of fiduciary trust. money laundering is clearly an important category of financial crime. obviously, i will look at the issue from my vantage point as regulator. the recent massive destruction of financial wealth in the us and europe ( most notably enron and worldcom but there were others ) raised the profile of corporate financial crime. in the last two years or so, we have been introduced by madoff and stanford. what all of these have in common is a breach of fiduciary trust whereby depositors or investors were bilked of considerable sums by unscrupulous operators who were reckless with other peoples ’ money, driven by greed and self - dealing. in recent years, we in the caribbean have had our own high profile examples of financial crime, of various levels of sophistication. some of you may remember the “ fantasy tours ” a pyramid scheme which collected more than tt $ 100 million in a year before its inevitable collapse. a similar scheme in jamaica, plus, is estimated to have raked in between us $ 100 - 500 million. there was one in grenada reported to have cost investors an estimated us $ 30 million. it is worth noting that both in trinidad and tobago and jamaica, it was not only the lowerincome or the financially naive that were caught in the net. in fact, several people, who considered themselves

the caribbean sea and its coasts – from which the caribbean region draws its name, identity and economic sustenance. the caribbean sea is the second largest sea in the world, after the mediterranean. it is a natural asset whose resources provide an endowment of goods and services. the following examples are worthy of note : • the caribbean sea is home to one - tenth of the world ’ s coral reefs and has an outstanding biodiversity of seagrass beds and mangroves, all of which are attractions to almost one - third of the world ’ s tourists ; • seafood accounts for more than 7 per cent of the animal protein consumed by the people in the caribbean ; • fishing is a significant provider of jobs and income in the caribbean. more than 1. 5 million people in the caribbean rely for their livelihood on commercial fishing, which generates more than us $ 1 billion annually in export earnings ; • marine and coastal tourism form the lifeblood of many caribbean economies. according to the world travel and tourism council, in 2011, tourism accounted for 13 per cent of total regional employment, 14 per cent of the caribbean ’ s gdp and 17 per cent to total export earnings ; • the caribbean sea is one of the principal waterways in the world, harboring in excess of 80, 000 ship calls per year, and is classified as having one of the most intensive maritime traffic in the world ; and • the sea floor of the caribbean sea may yield many important minerals available for extraction, including silver, gold, copper, manganese, cobalt, and zinc. technology is emerging to commercially tap new sources of marine - based renewable energy from the caribbean sea as well medicines that can improve many millions of lives. notwithstanding its importance, in common with ocean regions across the world, the caribbean sea has seen overexploitation and degradation of its marine resources over the past three to four decades. reports from the food and agricultural organization ( fao ) suggest that the sustainability of fisheries in the caribbean sea is in jeopardy and that precautionary management is critical. coastal fish stocks depletion has been worsened by the threats of ocean acidification and pollution associated with both marine and land based activities. today, these problems are compounded by climate change. in effect, the livelihoods of communities, national economies and the biodiversity of the ecosystems of the caribbean sea are threatened. if caribbean countries can make the institutional reforms needed to reduce open access to its marine resources and to provide secure incentives for responsible husbandry of these resources, there is