Manama: Stunned Bahrainis were on Friday seeking information and answers in the aftermath of the arrest of a sitting minister, the first since Bahrain became independent in 1971.
Still reeling under the dramatic developments around Al Wefaq and the ire it drew from some MPs and media people for its perceived faux pas at its annual general assembly and the subsequent onslaught on the British ambassador to Bahrain for his alleged interference in Bahrain's domestic affairs, Bahrainis were not ready for the news that a minister who enjoyed the full trust of the leadership would be detained on charges of alleged money laundering.
Although the interior ministry statement about the arrest on Thursday evening mentioned an official, Bahrainis learned from the country's various online forums that the man held by the security authorities was State Minister Mansoor Bin Rajab.
"We are shocked by the arrest because we are not used to the idea of a minister being arrested. We really do not know how to think because it all novel to us," said Tariq, an accountant. "I still hope that he can clear his name because we are rather used to seeing him in a leading position and as a leader of a religious community centre," he said.
Highly respected
An academician who at one time worked with the detainee said that he was stunned by the news of the arrest. "Here we have a man who has a highly respected family name, a good position and excellent connections with all sections of the Bahraini society. Yet, he allegedly got unnecessarily involved in an illegal activity that would destroy all the work he has piled up over the years," he said.
Writing in a forum, Hafaniya wondered whether the common law would be applied to the minister. "[Is] the same law that applies to common people ... also applicable to ministers?" she asked. "Would there be stringent legal action against him for the money laundering crimes or would he be just dismissed?"
Mahmoud, one of Bahrain's finest bloggers who was once dragged into courts by Bin Rajab over an online comment, suggested several factors that could be behind the arrest. It could be that "the government is signalling that they are serious [again] about combating corruption," he wrote. "Whatever it is, like the rest of Bahrain, I will wait for clarifications and an outcome of this case, if any. One thing I will guarantee you though: watch this situation being played with sectarian notes."
For Eyad, another blogger, "whoever the minister, this is a good thing for Bahrain by all measures, and will be highly praised by all."
"It is a big step forward and hopefully a start in the right direction. I hope this does not turn sectarian and people should see it as it is," he wrote.
In another forum, a blogger signing as "Bahrani Who Makes Sense" said that he was upset by the unhappy end to the minister, but added that it would be deserved if he was really involved in money laundering operations.
Speculating on links
Some bloggers allowed their imagination to rush to draw ties between the minister and some other countries and foreign forces, claiming that he acted as their middle man in laundering money and assets in Bahrain to allow them to sell drugs and buy weapons. Others, more concerned with reality on the ground, wondered why it took the security authorities more than a year to raid the home and office of the minister and subsequently arrest him.
According to the police, the official was detained following months of investigations and close monitoring. No figure was released about the amount of money involved in the laundering amid speculations that it was in the millions of dollars.
Al Waqt daily said that the National Security Agency on Thursday accompanied the minister from his home to his office where agents conducted a thorough search and called in his aides for further investigations.
The minister was quizzed by the NSA and later by the interior ministry's anti-economic crime unit that oversees cases of money laundering.
Brigadier Rashid Bu Humood, the ministry's assistant undersecretary for legal affairs, said that the authorities first noticed the suspicious activities in early 2009 and kept monitoring the suspect.
An act of converting illegal incomes to legal ones
What is money laundering?
Money laundering is the process of running a group of mixed financial operations in order to disguise the illegal source of money involved in some of the operations and then show it as a legitimate source. Such a process enables criminals to utilize illegal money without jeopardising their source. Illegal arms sales, smuggling, and the activities of organised crime, including for example drug trafficking and prostitution rings, can generate huge amounts of proceeds. Embezzlement, insider trading, bribery and computer fraud schemes can also produce large profits and create the incentive to “legitimise” the illegal gains through money laundering.
How does money laundering work?
When a criminal activity generates substantial profits, the individual or group involved must find a way to control the funds without attracting attention to the underlying activity or the persons involved. Criminals do this by disguising the sources, changing the form, or moving the funds to a place where they are less likely to attract attention. There are three essential stages to the money laundering process:
Placement: This is the real disposal of the earned money from illegal activities through the investments of funds which is generated from illegal activity either in the form of deposits with banks or financial investments or buy commercial financial investments that has a project or purchase of shares or guarantees and overall invest the obtained money from illegal act in a form of legitimate.
Layering: This is the process of separating illicit proceeds from their source through internal and external transfers in order to create complex layers of financial transactions designed to disguise the audit trail and provide anonymity.
Integration: This is the provision of apparent legitimacy to criminally derived wealth. If the layering process has succeeded, integration schemes place the laundered proceeds back into the economy in such a way that they re-enter the financial system and appear to be normal business funds , that through the emerging money from the illegal act in another commercial business that known as its legitimacy and the legality of the capital ,so it is so difficult to separate the obtained money which is from the illegal source and the obtained money from legitimate source.
When is a person considered to have committed money laundering?
A person who has committed any of the following acts for the purpose of showing that the source of the property is lawful, knowing or believing or having reason to know or believe that such property is derived from criminal activity or from an act of participation in criminal activity shall have committed the offence of money laundering:
• Conducting a transaction with the proceeds of crime
• The concealment or disguise of the nature, source, location, disposition, movement, rights with respect of, in or over, or ownership of the proceeds of crime
• The acquisition or receipt or transfer of the proceeds of crime
• The retention or possession of the proceeds of crime.
In addition, any of the following acts shall be deemed to be an act of participation in the offence of money laundering:
• Destruction, misappropriation, concealment or forgery of any document which could be used as evidence in the offence or against the accused
• Knowledge of the intent of any person who commits the offence, and provision of any facilities or information which may assist such person to conceal the offence or escape from prosecution.
How does fighting money laundering help fight crime and terrorism?
Money laundering is a threat to the proper and transparent functioning of a financial system; however, it can also be the Achilles heel of terrorist/criminal activity. In law enforcement investigations into organised criminal activity, it is often the connections made through financial transaction records that allow hidden assets to be located and that establish the identity of the criminals and the criminal organisation responsible. When criminal funds are derived from robbery, extortion, embezzlement or fraud, a money laundering investigation is frequently the only way to locate the stolen funds and restore them to the victims. Most importantly, however, targeting the money laundering aspect of criminal activity and depriving the criminal of his ill-gotten gains means hitting him where he is vulnerable. Without a usable profit, the terrorist/criminal activity will not continue.
Where does money laundering occur?
As money laundering is a consequence of almost all profit generating crime, it can occur practically anywhere in the world. Generally, money launderers tend to seek out countries or sectors in which there is a low risk of detection due to weak or ineffective anti-money laundering programmes. Because the objective of money laundering is to get the illegal funds back to the individual who generated them, launderers usually prefer to move funds through stable financial systems.
Money laundering activity may also be concentrated geographically according to the stage the laundered funds have reached. At the placement stage, for example, the funds are usually processed relatively close to the under-lying activity; often, but not in every case, in the country where the funds originate.
With the layering phase, the launderer might choose an offshore financial centre, a large regional business centre, or a world banking centre – any location that provides an adequate financial or business infrastructure. At this stage, the laundered funds may also only transit bank accounts at various locations where this can be done without leaving traces of their source or ultimate destination.
Finally, at the integration phase, launderers might choose to invest laundered funds in still other locations if they were generated in unstable economies or locations offering limited investment opportunities.
What is the world doing about money laundering?
In response to mounting concern over money laundering, the Financial Action Task Force on money laundering (FATF) was established by the G-7 Summit in Paris in 1989 to develop a co-ordinated international response. One of the first tasks of the FATF was to develop recommendations, 40 in all, which set out the measures national governments should take to implement effective anti-money laundering programmes. These policies aim to prevent such proceeds from being utilised in future criminal activities and from affecting legitimate economic activities. The FATF currently consists of 29 countries and two international organizations. Bahrain is an active member of the FATF through the GCC. The FATF originally issued the Forty Recommendations (FR) in 1990, and these were then revised in 1996 to include coverage of new and evolving methods of money-laundering, and again in 2001 the FR were extended to cover the issue of terrorist financing by the creation of Eight Special Recommendations on Terrorist Financing.
Sources: Financial Intelligence Unit, Bahrain Ministry of Interior; Financial Action Task Force website (www.fatf-gafi.org)
Bahrain’s efforts to fight money laundering: Speech by the Interior Minister
The Kingdom of Bahrain has been aware of the dangers of money laundering as a result of economic and financial activity internationally and locally. This activity has resulted in the appearance of illegal money which is trying to find new ways to gain legitimacy.
The Kingdom has initiated many steps to combat this menace. Bahrain was the first country in the Gulf to issue a special decree to check money laundering and terrorist financing. This became Law by Decree No. 4 for 2001, which laid down the legal principles and framework to ensure the disclosure of any suspicious financial activity.
The Kingdom has set up a committee to formulate the policies to ban and combat money-laundering and terrorist financing. It has representatives of the Ministry of Interior, other parties concerned as well as the Unit to Combat Money Laundering & Terrorist Financing, which follows the Ministry of Interior as it is considered to be the authorized specialized unit to implement the law.
The security strategies aim to consider all the challenges in the field by actively confronting the menace within the legal framework for which there is Law No. 54 for 2006, an amended version of Law by Decree No. 4 for 2001 regarding banning and combating money laundering, terrorist financing and transferring money across borders illegally.
This brings together all the necessary penalties to achieve the appropriate deterrents for these crimes. With the amendment the Kingdom has affirmed its commitment to international resolutions on combating terrorist financing, especially to the UN Security Council Resolution 1373 of September 20, 2001.
The Kingdom of Bahrain has been chosen to be the headquarters of the Middle East & North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF). As regards the Kingdom’s distinguished efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing and its cooperation with the parties and organizations concerned, both at the international and regional fronts, there has been support for the sincere steps Bahrain has taken at the financial and economic levels as it is considered to be the centre of commercial investments and a major financial centre both internationally and regionally.”
Source: Financial Intelligence Unit, Bahrain Ministry of Interior;
What does the law say on money laundering in Bahrain?
The following are the punishments for money laundering according to Bahraini law:
• Any person committing, attempting or participating in a money laundering offence shall be liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding seven years and a fine not exceeding 1 million Bahraini dinars (US $2.65 million)
• Any person who commits any of the offences related to the offence of money laundering shall be liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years and /or a fine not exceeding 50,000 Bahraini dinars ($132,626)
• A person convicted of the offence of money laundering shall in addition to the punishment prescribed, be liable to confiscation or property which is the subject matter of the offence, or any other property owned by him or by his spouse or his minor children, equivalent in value to the property which is subject matter of the offence.
• A person can be punished for the offence of money laundering even if he is not convicted in the underlying criminal activity.
• A person can be separately charged and convicted of both a money laundering offence and of an offence constituted by an underlying criminal activity from which the property or the proceeds, in respect of which he is charged with money laundering, were derived.
Source: Financial Intelligence Unit, Bahrain Ministry of Interior
