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| News Release - Saturday, August 3rd, 2002 |
Bankers Face Long Prison Terms for Money Laundering
Former
President and Chairman of the now defunct Dominica based and licenced British Trade and Commercial Bank, Venezuelan Rodolfo
Requena was sentenced to 30 months in prison, at a US district court in Miami after pleading guilty to
money laundering charges.
Rodolfo Requena, 51 was arrested on November 13, 2001 just weeks after the bank was forced
into receivership. The bank started operations in Dominica on November 30, 2000 with offices on the Dame Eugenia Charles Bou
levard in Roseau.
The bank quickly started facing liquidity problems and Mr. Requena responded by increasing interest rates to depositors. It
was reported at the time that local Dominican residents lost as much as $13, million dollars of their deposits when regulato
rs stepped in to close the bank.
Around the same time that Mr. Requena pleaded guilty in Miami, Dominican businessman Julian Giraud and his business partner
Brian Boeger also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. Sentencing of the two was originally set for July
9, 2002 but the date has now been pushed back. The new date for sentencing was not
announced by the US district court.
Giraud and Boeger both worked for the off-shore bank Overseas Development Bank an
d Trust. Giraud was arrested in Puerto Rico by US undercover federal agents after been targeted in a 'sting' operation initi
ated by US federal agents. At the time of his arrest, Giraud was traveling with
then finance minister Ambrose George. The finance minister was however not arrested and has not been implicated in the money
laundering scandal.
Meanwhile, regulators in Dominica have stepped in to revoke the provisional licence granted on August 10, 2001 to another of
f-shore bank, the AIF Bank and Trust Ltd. The reasons for the revoking of the licence has not been made public.
Domin
ica continues to be on the OECD list of non co-operating countries in the fight against money laundering, even as another Ca
ribbean country
St. Kitts was recently removed.
Regulators in Dominica have acted agressively to shut down several offshore banks,
put legislation in place to better monitor such banks, and set up a Financial Inteligence Unit to 'police' their affairs. In
spite of this,
the country remains on the negative list, and its offshore banking sector continues to be adversely affected.
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