Friday, October 08, 2010

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=157594

AN estimated $100 million in black money is laundered annually in Fiji.

Financial Intelligence Unit director Razim Buksh said as much as $50 million in tax earnings were lost annually as a result of money laundering.

The revelations came as the second National Anti-money Laundering conference began at the Holiday Inn in Suva this week.

Mr Buksh said the $50m loss was only the tip of the iceberg.

"Because we are now introducing measures to detect, investigate and analyse these transactions, I think a lot more such transactions will be brought to the FIU and tax authorities to be better able to look at tax evasions issues in Fiji," he said in a statement.

"Not only that, a lot of people engaged in trade-based money laundering provide false, fictitious documents to tax authorities and Customs officials, and this causes a lot of problems to the tax and Customs revenue for the Government.

"The measures we will discuss at the conference are very important and timely because they will boost the much-needed additional tax revenue that we are losing at the hands of tax evaders."

Mr Buksh said cash obtained from the sale of drugs produced both locally and internationally was identified as a major object that was laundered.

"Drugs is a cash commodity and when Fiji is used as a trans-shipment point for drugs, we very strongly believe that the funds also flow through our financial institutions in Fiji," he said.

"And these transactions would not just be in thousands, it'll be in millions of dollars, so the effort should be for us to look at the crime, as well as the transaction and the proceeds of those crimes."