THE Financial Investigations Division (FID) Friday reiterated its commitment to safeguard Jamaica’s financial integrity, as it provided an update on the legal proceedings involving Alliance Investment Management Limited (AIML), Alliance Finance Limited (AFL), and their principals.

At the same time, the FID said it has initiated and completed a criminal forfeiture investigation against AFL regarding its benefit from the offences for which it was convicted, noting that the file is currently before the Supreme Court for a forfeiture hearing later in 2024.

In early 2022, following a guilty plea, AFL was sentenced to the following:

* A fine of $50,000 or nine months’ imprisonment for each of 28 counts of ‘carrying on the business of lending foreign currency without being an authorised dealer’ under Section 22A (2) of the Bank of Jamaica Act.

* A fine of $2.5 million or 12 months’ imprisonment for each of eight counts of breaching Section 10 (1) (c) of the Banking Services Act for accepting deposits without the requisite licence from the Bank of Jamaica.

Based on the nature of the offences, the court imposed a significant fine totalling $21.4million.

AIML recently presented documents in court purporting to support its claim that the reports were filed to the FID. This provided sufficient doubt in regard to three of the reports, which resulted in the court upholding a no-case submission.

“The FID respects this ruling but emphasises that it does not affect ongoing efforts to recover the full benefits obtained by AFL from the offences for which it was convicted,” said a statement Friday from the FID.

On Friday, King’s Counsel Tom Tavares-Finson, in a press release, said: “The statement from the FID is not worth the paper it is written on. It attempts to conflate issues by raising the fact that as part of a plea arrangement AFL pleaded guilty to minor regulatory breaches. Several entities were guilty of the same regulatory breaches and were granted a waiver shortly after the AFL persecution to avoid being held accountable.

“[It’s] important to note that AFL and AIML are separate entities. The baseless POCA (Proceeds of Crime Act) charges are what were fatal to the operations of AIML under the leadership of its founders. The FID statement only serves to compound the injustice meted out to AIML and does not acknowledge the grave error in the conduct of the FID, FSC and the BOJ.

“Given the collapse of the POCA case against AIML due to wholly unreasonable and baseless FID/FSC/BOJ overreach, the entity’s founders reserves the right to take legal action to recoup losses incurred,” said Tavares-Finson.

The case dates back to 2018 when a search warrant executed on Alliance network’s offices culminated in the seizure of financial documents, indicating alleged breaches of multiple financial legislations. The operation was led by FID and Constabulary Financial Unit (CFU) personnel, along with the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) Fraud Squad, Major Investigation Division, Counter Terrorism and Organised Crime Branch (CTOC) as well as the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA).

Several offences were identified and as a result a file was submitted to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), which ruled that AIML, AFL, their president, Peter Chin, and vice-president, Robert Chin, be charged with various breaches of the Bank of Jamaica Act, the Banking Services Act, and the Proceeds of Crime Act.

AFL and Peter Chin were charged with “carrying on the business of lending foreign currency without being an authorised dealer”, under Section 22A (2) of the Bank of Jamaica Act, relating to several foreign currency loans, totalling approximately US$8 million to various entities.

Peter Chin and Robert Chin were also charged with breaching Section 10 (1) (c) of the Banking Services Act for accepting deposits without the requisite licence from the Bank of Jamaica. These breaches related to a series of deposits which exceeded US$7.5 million over a three-year period (2014-2017).

AIML was also charged with 17 counts of ‘failure to file threshold transaction reports’ — Section 3 (1) of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering Prevention) Regulations 2007, for allegedly failing to file cash transactions of, or exceeding, US$15,000 (or its equivalent in any other currency) to the designated authority, that is, the chief technical director of the FID.