GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) – Guyana’s president accused the United States and other large nations of unfairly forcing Caribbean countries to combat money laundering, while failing to enforce similar rules at home.

President Bharrat Jagdeo, speaking before the Caribbean Association of Indigenous Banks late Monday, urged regional officials to decry the “tremendous double-standards” imposed against Caribbean countries whose offshore banking industries have long been considered money-laundering hotspots because of their banking secrecy laws.

Caribbean countries must not put “undue burdens” on their economies “just to satisfy some notion of probity that even countries that recommend the probity don’t practice themselves”, Jagdeo said.

Jagdeo and other regional leaders have long complained that while large-scale money laundering takes place in major economies including the U.S. and U.K., only small nations face scrutiny and the threat of sanctions for the illegal practice.

Daniel Glaser, US deputy assistant treasury secretary for financial crimes, said not only the US, but the UN, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, and countries across the world recognise that anti-money laundering measures are key to maintaining global security.

“The US doesn’t force anyone to implement” these measures – it’s a matter of international consensus, Glaser said in a telephone interview.

Caribbean leaders claim that local offshore banking regulations have been tightened since the Financial Action Task Force put five territories – the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Dominica – on a tax-haven blacklist in 2000.

They say offshore banking is a major avenue of income for small nations.