(Kaieteur News) – The warning from INTERPOL Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza last week that criminal networks are now operating like corporations is serious enough for Guyana, and the wider Caribbean to take note of.
The days when organised crime could be understood simply as gangs moving drugs from one place to another are long gone. Criminal enterprises have become sophisticated, diversified and international. They exploit legitimate businesses, maritime routes, digital platforms, financial systems and increasingly sophisticated technologies to move people, weapons, drugs and illicit money across borders.
In Guyana our extensive Atlantic coastline, rivers, forests, porous borders and expanding economic activity provide legitimate opportunities for development. But those same characteristics can be exploited by criminal networks. The country’s growing connectivity also creates new avenues for cybercrime, fraud, money laundering and other technology-enabled offences.
The threat is therefore much larger than the quantity of cocaine, firearms or illegal gold intercepted by law enforcement. INTERPOL’s message is that law enforcement must go beyond the cargo. Urquiza pointed to Operation Guyana Shield and its efforts to trace illegal timber, gold, mercury supplies, shell companies and laundered profits. His observation that seizures take away criminals’ cargo while following the money takes away their business deserves serious consideration.
For too long, success in the fight against organised crime has often been measured by the number of arrests, the quantity of drugs seized or the number of illegal weapons recovered. Those are important achievements, but they do not necessarily dismantle a criminal organisation.
A trafficker can lose one shipment and replace it. A criminal syndicate can lose several couriers and recruit others. But when investigators identify the people financing the operation, trace the proceeds, expose shell companies and seize the assets acquired with criminal money, the organisation’s ability to operate is fundamentally challenged. That is where Guyana must place greater emphasis.
The country needs strong financial intelligence capabilities, effective asset tracing, robust anti-money-laundering enforcement and closer cooperation among the police, customs authorities, financial institutions, regulators and other agencies responsible for combating economic crime.
International cooperation is equally important. As Commissioner of Police, Dr. Clifton Hicken correctly noted at the recently concluded conference, no country can successfully confront transnational crime in isolation. Criminal networks do not respect borders. They can move money, communications, people and commodities across jurisdictions far more quickly than traditional law enforcement systems can sometimes respond.
Guyana must therefore ensure that its law enforcement agencies are not only adequately equipped but properly connected to their counterparts throughout the region and beyond. The proposed INTERPOL Silver Notices Initiative could provide another important tool by helping countries trace and disrupt illicit assets across borders. Guyana should make full use of every legitimate international mechanism capable of helping investigators identify and recover criminal proceeds.
But international assistance cannot substitute for domestic vigilance.
Financial institutions, businesses, professionals and public authorities must understand that organised crime can infiltrate legitimate economic activity. The dirty money does not always arrive carrying a label. It can be disguised through companies, property transactions, investments, gold, cryptocurrency and other seemingly legitimate activities.
This means that the fight against crime must increasingly become a fight against concealment. Guyana’s development must not create opportunities for criminal enterprises to entrench themselves in the economy. As billions of dollars flow into the country and new businesses and industries emerge, systems must be strong enough to distinguish legitimate wealth creation from wealth generated through criminal activity.
INTERPOL has delivered the warning. Guyana must now demonstrate that it understands the challenge. The objective cannot simply be to seize the drugs, guns or illegal gold. The greater objective must be to identify who finances the operation, who profits from it, where the money goes and what assets have been acquired with it. Follow the money, and the criminal corporation becomes vulnerable. That is the fight Guyana must be prepared to wage.
Source: Kaieteur News
