Unexplained wealth should ‘ring the bell’ for authorities, says RBF Governor

Reserve Bank of Fiji Governor Ariff Ali says agencies such as the Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) need to raise their “antenna” when acting on financial intelligence reports.

Mr Ali made the comments while responding to questions from the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs about how the Fiji Financial Intelligence Unit (FFIU) responds when a person is suspected of financial crimes.

Committee deputy chair Premila Kumar said there were instances where a person was known or suspected to be involved in suspicious dealings, while the assets they owned did not correspond with the size of the business they operated.

Mr Ali said stakeholders such as the FRCS needed to assist the FFIU in identifying and investigating such cases.

“This is just not the role of the FFIU but it is also the role of the FRCS. It is very easy to know if someone is earning $30,000 to $50,000 in salary and then there are three cars and two houses. I know for a fact that there are times that these things are reported to FFIU by a whistleblower and FFIU is able to do a few quick checks,” Mr Ali said.

He said such circumstances were “red flags” that should alert authorities to possible financial crimes.

“When a person goes overseas three times a year and every time the ticket is being bought by someone else or that person has gone abroad two to three times with family but has not done any foreign exchange, that rings the bell,” he said.

Mr Ali said the FRCS also needed to pay closer attention to possible tax-related red flags.

“I think the other agency that needs to be raising their antenna is FRCS as well because if somebody is not lodging the right amount of tax, somebody is getting income and it could be legitimate but are not paying tax for it.”

He said lawyers and accountants handling suspicious dealings also had a responsibility to report them to the FFIU.

“The other important thing is, it is also the job of the lawyers and accountants who are handling suspicious dealings to report it. Unfortunately, we do not get so many numbers from them and we can guess the reason for that.”