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AMLA unfreezes P700-M in funds |
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By Des Ferriols
(December 15, 2003 - Friday, The Philippine Star) Pyramiding scam victims are getting their money back — but are less likely to finish prosecuting the cases against the scammers who stole their money. |
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The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) has unfrozen about P700 million worth of funds and allowed their disbursement to various claimants. However, regulators have been unable to prosecute violators of the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) because complainants tend to withdraw from the cases once they recover their money.
The AMLC reported over the weekend that, from January to November, it has frozen a total of P1.084 billion in funds from various illegal activities under the old provisions of the AMLA. As of November, the AMLC said a total of P692.263 million had been ordered unfrozen. These funds were proceeds from pyramid scams shut down by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). AMLC executive director Vicente Aquino, however, said that returning the funds to claimants in pyramid scam cases has left the government unable to prosecute because the complainants were generally uninterested in pursuing their cases before the courts. "The victims of these crimes are usually happy when they get their money back and they don’t want the trouble of seeing their cases to the finish," Aquino said. He added that a significant portion of the cases being investigated by the council involved violations of the Securities Regulation Act (SRA) — mostly the illegal sale of unregistered securities by pyramid scam operators. In the AMLC report covering the period between January and November, the AMLC investigated a total of 39 cases. Of this number, 15 were estafa cases and 14 involved SRA violations. Five of the cases involved terrorism-related activities and one involved illegal drug law violations. "Since the (AMLA) was amended, there was a shift in the focus of our anti-money laundering effort from the recovery of the proceeds to bringing perpetrators to justice," Aquino said. "It is the same as in other jurisdictions." "To me, however, they are equally important," he said. On the whole, the AMLC powers have to be expanded with the restoration of its power to freeze suspicious accounts, as well as to prosecute predicate crimes identified in the AMLA. Along with these reforms, the revised recommendation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) would also require Congress to eventually include graft and corruption, tax evasion, child prostitution and violations of environmental laws in the list of predicate crimes, as detailed in the FATF’s Revised 40 Recommendations. Aquino said future amendments to the AMLA must also include the restoration of the AMLC’s power to immediately freeze bank accounts suspected of being conduits through which illegally-obtained funds are laundered. Predicate crimes are defined as crimes which would trigger immediate investigation by financial intelligence units (FIUs) like the AMLC. Once these predicate crimes are identified and listed in the law, FIUs can investigate the finances of any entity suspected of involvement in such crimes. The legal process involved in the investigation of funds and finances are essentially simplified and expedited by the anti-money laundering laws, making it easier to stop the flow of money to and from entities perpetrating these illegal activities. As the FATF firmed up its power to pressure government regulators into compliance, the list of predicate crimes has expanded beyond the original objective of curbing money laundering of funds generated by the illegal drug trade. home | latest news |
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