No Dirty Money from OFWs Yet — Watchdog

The information and communication technology boom has spawned fast cash flow via, for example, mobile phones and the Internet.

The World Bank’s Information for Development (infoDev) program, nonetheless, believes such technology can combat dirty money.

InfoDev said in a paper that the Philippines’ mobile phone remittance technologies “even help reduce fraud, money laundering and criminal acts…because the cash assets are no longer being carried around in person”.

Aquino said the reason for the spotless money laundering record of overseas Filipinos is because of a threshold whenever a migrant remits through formal and informal or non-banking channels.

That threshold is for a one-time remittance activity, as Aquino observes migrant remitters send amounts way below the US$10,000 threshold (say US$1,000 or US$2,000) monthly.

The know-your-customer (KYC) requirement is also strictly followed in remittance centers and banks overseas and in the Philippines. Money senders are required to verify their identity as well as the identity of the recipients.

Meanwhile, the Interpol (the world’s largest international police organization), in a study of “ethnic banking systems” of 31 countries in Asia, cited it found neither direct nor indirect links between overseas workers’ remittances and money laundering.

This is despite the study having discovered direct links between these banking systems and money flows from unlawful activities.

In the East Asian region, there are “unregulated remittance centers” in Hong Kong-China, Japan, and Korea that serve nationals such as Filipinos, the Interpol study said.

Ethnic banking systems among countries in East Asia “report interconnectedness with the currencies and peoples of the Asian-oriental region,” Interpol wrote.

The study, written by Lisa M. Carroll and done through a survey of Interpol’s per-country counterparts, also wrote that 13 countries’ alternative remittance systems, including the Philippines’, “function as a money laundering tool”.

But items on the Philippines in Interpol’s report show that the laundered money comes from the drug trade, profits from illegal gambling, proceeds from human trafficking, alien smuggling and ransom.

Baseball

THE Philippines, which was once part of a list of non-cooperating countries and territories, has been in an “anti-money laundering regime” Aquino claims.

He likens this regime to a “baseball field of dreams” where anti-money laundering enforcers and prosecutors are ready to spot laundered money flows and operators.

We have all the bases covered, he adds.