FIU Report Highlights 2019 Achievements & the Performance

The Fiji Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Annual Report for 2019 was tabled in Parliament today, 4 September 2020 by the Attor ney-General and Minister for Justice, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

The report provides information on key achievements and the performance of the FIU f or 2019. The FIU is responsible for implementing and enforcing the Financial Transactions Reporting (FTR) Act.

The FIU is the lead agency for preventing and detecting money laundering in Fiji.

The Director, Razim Buksh said that the FIU has made substantial progress on delivery of our functions, duties and powers in the past 14 years since it was established in 2006 which includes:

■stro■g er collaboration and networking with law enforcement partner agencies;

■e■ha■ced technical resources, data-mining, analytics, and capacity of the FIU; strengthened information exchange with domestic and foreign agencies;

■more developed preventative measures, customer due diligence and financial transaction reporting framework together with strong compliance and enforcement measures; and

FIU database containing more than 16million financial transaction information.

In 2019, the FIU r eceived 622 suspicious transaction r eports, 1,515,681 electronic fund transfer reports, 794,044 cash transaction reports and 1,102 border currency reports. The FIU’ s intellig ence outcomes that were disseminated in 2019 to various law enforcement and other Go ver nment agencies include: (a)84 intelligence reports totalling suspected tainted pr oceeds of $10million to various law enforcement agencies, (b) 222 in vestigative assistance on 67 entities and 318 individuals, (c) 89 due diligence and background checks on 99 entities and 162 individuals, and (d) 209 direct data searches by officers ofFIU’s partner agencies on several suspected individual and entities. This resulted in successful in vestigation of 19 border currency smuggling cases, one money laundering conviction, several successful investigation of cases on tax evasion, cor ruption, proceeds of crime, online scam, unexplained wealth and other predicate crime investigations in 2019.

The FIU contin ued its eng agement with the la wyers, accountants and real estate agents and conducted onsite examinations to ensure that the requirements under the FTR Act and Regulations are effectively implemented. In 2019, the FIU finalised its 2020 – 2024 stra te gic plan which reflects the environment in which the FIU will operate in the next five years, par ticularly focusing on technology driven processes.

Mr Buksh said the outcomes in 2019 has been possib le through the suppor t of various partners such as the National AML Council, the la w enforcement agencies, reporting financial institutions and other relevant agencies including the Reserve Bank of Fiji.