CARICOM Agreement on sharing of recovered assets

ST JAMES, Jamaica — The Jamaican Government is moving to sign the CARICOM Agreement on the Sharing of Recovered Assets, which is intended to strengthen regional cooperation in this area by establishing a framework for the return or sharing of illicitly acquired proceeds that have been confiscated.

Rohan Richards

Chief Technical Director (CTD) in the Ministry of National Security, Rohan Richards, said the Agreement will also facilitate the provision of assistance to victims of money laundering and increased financing for regional security institutions.

He was speaking during the recent Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Network of the Caribbean (ARIN-CARIB) Annual General Meeting at the Hilton Rose Hall Resort in St James.

Jamaica’s signing of the regional agreement is expected to complement legislation that Richards said the ministry is pursuing to implement an asset recovery incentivisation scheme.

“This scheme will allow those agencies that work to combat money laundering to be able to utilise a portion of the funds recovered in order to improve their capacity and operational effectiveness,” he explained.

The CTD said this is expected to go a far way in enabling agencies, such as the Financial Investigations Division (FID), “to successfully pursue more criminals under the Proceeds of Crime Act”.