VZCZCXYZ0032
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHKG #0709/01 1311902
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 111902Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY KINGSTON
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4750
INFO RUEHDG/AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO 5820
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC

UNCLAS KINGSTON 000709 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR INL/LP BROWN, BOZZOLO, WHA/CAR FOR BUDDEN 
TREASURY FOR CORREA 
JUSTICE FOR LIPMAN 
SANTO DOMINGO FOR LGATT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SNAR EFIN PREL JM
SUBJECT: JAMAICA: NEW PROCEEDS OF CRIME ACT TO GO INTO 
EFFECT ON MAY 15; NOT A SINGLE JAMAICAN GOVERNMENTAL 
ORGANIZATION IS READY. 
 
REF: KINGSTON 588 
 
This is an Action Request, INL/LP, WHA/CAR please see para 11. 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  On May 8, as promised, (reftel), Minister 
of National Security, Peter Phillips, moved the new Proceeds 
of Crime Act (POCA) through its final parliamentary approval 
and announced that the legislation will go into effect on May 
¶15.  With POCA's enactment, for the first time, the 
Government of Jamaica will have the power of civil forfeiture 
at its disposal.  From May 8 - 11, NAS Director and a U.S. 
Department of the Treasury Liaison met with Jamaican 
officials charged with enforcing the POCA.  The good news is 
that all are agreed that the first cases to proceed through 
need to be in effect, "slam dunks," as everyone anticipates 
strong legal challenges from criminal organizations trying to 
protect their assets.  The bad news is that not a single 
Jamaican organization charged with the POCA's enforcement 
will be ready to go on May 15.  NAS, in close collaboration 
with the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the UK High 
Commission, is in the process of designing a training program 
for summer 2007 to flatten the learning curve.  End Summary. 
 
Background on Legislation 
=========================== 
 
¶2. (SBU) The POCA consolidates all previous Jamaican 
legislation that dealt with money laundering and asset 
forfeiture.  The initial legislation passed Parliament 
January 23.  On May 8, the acts implementing regulations were 
passed and its effective date was set for May 15.  Under the 
POCA, for the first time, the Government of Jamaica will have 
the power of civil forfeiture.  The POCA covers commercial 
banks, merchant banks, mortgage companies (called building 
societies), exchange bureaus, securities dealers, remittance 
agencies and money transfer agencies.  The POCA requires that 
the GOJ establish an Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) to manage 
and dispose of seized and forfeited assets; the ARA will be 
housed in the Financial Crimes Investigative Division (FID). 
 
Fierce Legal Challenges Expected 
================================ 
 
¶3.  (SBU) In discussing the new legislation, GOJ officials 
have uniformly expressed a desire to ensure that the initial 
cases brought to the courts, particularly civil forfeiture 
cases, are rock solid.  The FID and the Office of the Public 
Prosecutor, both anticipate extensive litigation over the 
POCA's constitutionality, the definition of a "criminal 
lifestyle" (predicate for forfeiture), and any asset freeze 
orders issued prior to seizure.  Both offices want to ensure 
that the first few cases are clear winners.  The head of the 
FID told us that she will not take any cases under the new 
POCA to court until she knows they are air tight.  As a 
consequence, during its first year, certain POCA cases are 
likely to be placed on hold or simply dropped by FID if they 
are not deemed strong enough. 
 
Preparations by GOJ to Enforce POCA 
=================================== 
 
¶4. (SBU) During the week of May 7, NAS Director and a Liaison 
Officer from the U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of 
Technical Assistance, met with representatives from the 
Office of the Public Prosecutor (DPP), the Jamaica 
Constabulary Force's Organized Crime/Financial Crimes 
Division (JCF/FID), the Ministry of Finance's Financial 
Investigative Division (FID), and the Tax Administration 
Directorate (TAAD) to discuss GOJ preparations for the POCA's 
implementation and discover where the USG could be of 
assistance.  Unsurprisingly, none of the Jamaican 
organizations involved have made anything more than cursory 
plans to implement the POCA.  Indeed it seems that Minister 
Phillips' announcement of the May 15 effective date, took 
most offices by surprise. 
 
Current state of GOJ entities 
============================= 
 
Financial Investigative Division 
 
 
¶5. (SBU)  In the past few years, the FID has received 
 
 
extensive mentoring from the U.S. Department of Treasury's 
Office of Technical Assistance, and the U.S. Department of 
Justice, and it has also gotten considerable financial 
support from NAS Kingston, the UK High Commission and the 
Canadian High Commission.  It is the most prepared of all the 
Jamaican entities involved with POCA enforcement.  That said, 
on May 15, the FID will have neither the structure nor staff 
in place to implement POCA's new provisions.  From April 16 - 
21, with the sponsorship of the British Government, the 
management of Jamaica's Financial Investigative Division 
(FID) was in the UK and Ireland for site visits to those 
nations' asset recovery agencies (ARA) to determine which 
model it will adopt for its new POCA-mandated ARA.  The FID 
is still designing the ARA's structure, but its management 
informed us that it will likely adopt the Irish model.  On 
May 4, the FID received verbal approval for the new positions 
it needs from the Ministers of Finance and National Security 
- attorneys, asset managers, administrative support staff - 
but still has yet to prepare its budget and position 
descriptions to Cabinet for approval before it can begin to 
recruit the necessary personnel.  The head of the FID 
confided that she will have to raid other government entities 
to fill FID's new positions, as the talent pool of qualified 
candidates is quite small. 
 
Tax Administrative Directorate 
 
 
¶6. (SBU)  The Tax Directorate (TAAD) has thus far been a 
reluctant partner with the FID on financial crimes cases. 
However, it has now agreed in writing to transfer the 
necessary personnel from its staff to FID to help prepare 
criminal tax assessments for prosecution.  This will enable 
parallel criminal cases, both for financial crimes and 
criminal tax evasion and should increase the GOJ's asset 
recovery.  Because of its past reluctance to work with FID 
and its failure to take advantage of past training and 
mentoring opportunities, TAAD staff, particularly its 
attorneys, need basic financial crimes training.  The 
Director General of TAAD has assured us that she will support 
training for her staff.  Due to a misunderstanding of their 
roles and mistrust between FID and TAAD investigators, 
cooperation between these two organizations has been rather 
ad hoc.  Going forward to avoid future misunderstandings, the 
TAAD Director would like to have a handbook detailing how 
cases are to be handled and delineating the areas of 
responsibility between the different offices. 
 
 
Office of the Public Prosecutor 
 
 
¶7. (SBU) Under the POCA, the Office of the Public Prosecutor 
along with the FID has the authority to bring asset freeze 
and forfeiture orders before the court.  The Office suffered 
a massive staff turnover in 2006, losing almost half of its 
attorneys to private practice.  With just slightly over 50 
prosecutors for the entire island, the Office is understaffed 
to handle its current case load.  The Director has designated 
seven of his prosecutors, three full time, four as back ups, 
to handle all financial crime cases, including Mutual Legal 
Assistance Treaty requests.  None of the attorneys have had 
any comprehensive training in how to read/analyze financial 
statements, and the prosecutor we met with informed us that 
the often voluminous and disorganized financial crimes' case 
files she receives often sit for up to a year essentially 
untouched because of her inability to access the critical 
information needed for prosecution.  Coordination between the 
Public Prosecutor's Office, the Jamaica Constabulary Force 
and FID is ad hoc as there is no handbook of best practices 
to help guide officers in case preparation. 
 
JCF/FID 
 
 
¶8. (SBU) No one, not even the soon to be new head of the 
Jamaica Constabulary Force's Financial Crimes Division, is 
completely sure where this group's investigative 
responsibility ends and FID's begins.  The standard line is 
that the JCF/FID will handle "small" cases and the FID will 
handle the complex ones.  FID will act as the clearing house 
and will determine whether the case would be appropriate for 
the JCF/FID.  There is a real need for a handbook or MOU 
 
 
between these two organizations to map out their 
investigative parameters.  The JCF/FID officers need "soup to 
nuts" training, from basic accounting principles, "books and 
records," interview techniques, and more sophisticated 
"follow the money" courses.  During the week of May 14, a 
select group of officers from the JCF, not necessarily the 
right ones, will receive a three-hour lecture from the FID 
and DPP's office on the POCA.  According to one of the 
prosecutors who will provide the training, "little will be 
retained due to the classes tornado-like approach to the 
subject." The JCF/FID officers are eager for training on 
investigative techniques using internet searches, but of 
course, as there is only one computer in the whole division 
and it is not hooked up to the internet, that training 
program will have to wait. 
 
Judiciary 
 
 
¶9. (SBU) The judiciary is extremely prickly and they do not 
want to have training, on any topic.  Everyone we met with 
agreed that it is critical for the judges to receive basic 
training not only on the POCA's contents but also, on "what 
financial crimes case prosecutions actually look like."  The 
Ministry of National Security (MNS) and Office of the Public 
Prosecutor warned us (U.S., UK) against directly approaching 
the judiciary.  To facilitate the training, the MNS agreed to 
speak with Ministry of Justice to develop a continuing 
education course for the judiciary through its own Justice 
Training Institute, that we would then quietly fund.  Both 
the U.S. and UK independently identified the same UK expert 
as the ideal candidate, a Justice Kennedy. 
 
Assessment of Training Needs 
============================= 
 
¶10. (SBU) Based on our meetings, NAS and the OTA Liaison have 
identified the following training needs:  basic finance and 
accounting, "follow the money," interview techniques for 
financial investigations, report writing, case file 
preparation, and the development of handbook of best 
practices to be used by FID/TAAD/JCF/DPP. 
 
Training Plan 
============== 
 
¶11.  (SBU) The UK has committed to provide advanced training 
and mentoring for the FID through its ARA's Center of 
Excellence on asset recovery and asset management.  We 
(U.S/UK) have already agreed that we should not duplicate 
efforts.  In addition to capacity building, any training 
program needs to pull together FID/TAAD/JCF/DPP staff to 
break down the barriers that exist between these 
organizations.  In addition, a lesson learned from previous 
training indicates that the training needs to be held at an 
off-site location, ideally out of Kingston, to prevent 
interruptions to the training by the officers' superiors.  As 
some officers have previously handled cases, we would run 
intensive sessions at the beginning to bring the neophytes up 
to the level necessary to join the more experienced 
investigators.  Mid-way we would then mix the training groups 
together for the more advanced courses such as "follow the 
money" and "case file preparation" to provide an opportunity 
for team building across government agencies.  Concurrently, 
we would ask managers from the organization involved in the 
training to work with U.S. and UK mentors to develop a draft 
handbook of best practices, which would then be distributed 
to the larger group for comment, amendment and final 
approval.  It is estimated that the funding needed for the 
two-week long, off-site course would be USD $100,000.  In its 
FY2007 budget, NAS-Kingston allocated USD $25,000 for the 
funding of POCA related courses.  NAS-Kingston will work with 
its UK partner to determine what assistance may be available, 
however given its commitments to fund assistance for the ARA, 
we are doubtful that there will be any additional funds at 
the High Commission's disposal.  Post therefore requests 
WHA/CAR and INL/LP's assistance to secure the funding to 
cover the remainder of the cost of the program. 
Johnson