The Trinidad & Tobago Financial Investigative Unit (FIU) has made its first cash seizure on June 29, 2010. This was just four weeks after a seminar on the importance of cash seizure was delivered to a multi-agency audience in Port of Spain by NPIA International Policing Adviser, Supt. Tristram Hicks. The FIU was established in November 2009 under the Proceeds of Crime Act. At that time NPIA Proceeds of Crime Centre trainers, Tim Holt and Simon Davis, delivered initial training to 23 FIU personnel on the practice of financial investigation. The FIU now has 35 matters under financial investigation according to Minister of National Security, Brigadier John Sandy. The FIU has also made 21 applications and has been granted court orders, as a result of which properties valued at $112,000 are subject to restraint orders and $86,000 subject to cash detention orders. The FIU is also providing assistance to foreign jurisdictions through the mutual legal assistance treaty for two matters. The FIU's mandate is to investigate financial crimes, including financing of terrorist activities. Brigadier Sandy was reported in the Trinidad Express on 9th August 2010 as saying that the Government was committed to protecting the integrity of the banking and financial service industries, which was crucial to achieving national and personal security, he said this involves the fight against white-collar crime, corruption and all vulnerabilities that threatens the financial stability of the country. Listing a number of financial felonies and fraud such as tax evasion, insider trading, financial kickbacks, cyber attacks, money laundering and securities fraud, skimming and fishing, he said money laundering has become one of the biggest global financial crimes. Trinidad and Tobago, he said, was vulnerable to money laundering activities, primarily because of its geographic location-that is its proximity and accessibility to the drug-producing countries of the south and consuming markets of the north. Sustainable efforts were needed to diminish these vulnerabilities.
