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On June 24, 2013, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) signed a letter of intent to establish a trade transparency unit in Manila to exchange information and promote the detection of trade-based money laundering and commercial fraud violations. HSI will provide the Philippine BOC with access to the Data Analysis and Research for Trade Transparency System, an HSI computer system that contains domestic and foreign trade data and allows users to see both sides of the trade transaction, making the transaction transparent. This access will provide both HSI and BOC the tools necessary to identify international trade anomalies and financial irregularities indicative of trade-based money laundering, customs fraud, movement of counterfeit goods and other import-export crimes. A recent study by the Financial Action Task Force and the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering indicated that trade-based money laundering is a problem for many of the group’s jurisdictions and has serious significance as an avenue to launder proceeds of crime. The Philippines is HSI’s 10th foreign trade transparency unit partner. |
