BY INGRID BROWN Senior staff reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, November 21, 2010

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Jamaica-Columbia-share-intelligence-in-narco-trafficking-war_8170839

Jamaica and Colombia have agreed to share intelligence on money-laundering activities -- another step in tackling the rapidly growing narco-trafficking trade in the region.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos Calderon, who was on a one-day official visit to Jamaica on Friday, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) allowing the sharing of information, increased collaboration and joint action between that country's Financial Analysis Unit and Jamaica's Financial Investigation Division (FID). This is aimed at fighting money laundering, the financing of terrorism and connected criminal activities.

Immediately following the signing of the MOU and the issuing of a joint communiqué at Jamaica House in Kingston, Golding told the Sunday Observer that this is an important collaboration.

"Through this agreement there will be much closer sharing of information almost on an automatic basis, subject to the necessary protocol with the Colombian authority, because so much of the drug activity that goes on in this region ends in money laundering, where they are trying to see if they can sanitise the illegally obtained wealth," Golding said.

He added further that because of the narco-trafficking connection between both countries, Colombian drug dealers will try to route money through Jamaica to get it clean here, and vice-versa.

Golding, however, explained that changes are being made to the personnel in Jamaica's FID not because there is any dissatisfaction but because of a need to have persons with specific expertise.

"We are faced with a problem where some of the targets of financial investigations are targets that we wouldn't want persons to pursue who do not have the training to deal with the targets of that nature because some of these targets are extremely dangerous," he said.

The agreement could not have been signed until the passage of the FID Act which gives that body authority to enter into MOUs with Foreign Intelligence Units. The Act was passed on March 31, 2010.

President Santos expressed pleasure that both countries were finally able to sign the agreement.

"This will help in the joint effort to fight organised crime," Santos said.

Meanwhile, Golding told the Sunday Observer that Jamaica is looking to implement a number of the recommendations in a recent report compiled by a security team from Colombia that was in the island three months ago.

Under the recently signed Operational Police Co-operation Agreement between both countries, eight high-level officials of the Colombian National Police visited Jamaica in August to produce a diagnostic asessment of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, which included a detailed SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of each arm of the Force.

The prime minister said the report is now with the minister of national security and an announcement on what will be rolled out will soon be made.

"The report is that the assessment they did was very thorough and they have identified some things that can be done to improve the quality of our counter-narcotics activities, and I expect that we will be rolling out those very soon," he said.

Golding said a number of the recommendations, which can make a huge difference, do not require huge resources to implement.