Daily Tribune
“There is indeed a scarcity of personnel in our agency.”
A high-ranking official of the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) made the admission following criticism the agency was unseen and unheard from.
“We don’t even have regional offices in the provinces, in Regions 3 and IV-B. The maritime interest is huge there. We cannot attend to matters that affect the safety of commercial shipping, as well as of passengers,” the official told Daily Tribune.
The official said they have been requesting an additional 1,000 personnel to add to the current 800 Marina workforce nationwide.
In contrast, another Department of Transportation agency in the maritime sector, the Philippine Coast Guard, seems to have an overflowing complement, forcing the government to use PCG personnel for road traffic management which is not their mandate.
Marina is calling the attention of Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon to its plight.
Money laundering through casinos has been the main concern of the influential Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in the Philippines prior to the country being removed from the list of nations being watched for being conduits of dirty money.
While laws were strengthened to address the problem, authorities including the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) are keeping a close tab on casinos that handle large volumes of cash, and thus provide opportunities to obscure the origins of illicit funds.
An individual with cash obtained from illegal activities enters a casino and buys gambling chips and since casinos deal with high cash turnover daily, it becomes easy to blend illicit funds with legitimate transactions.
The usual process of money launderers involves gambling a small amount that will be enough to create a paper trail but to keep losses low such as by betting on both red and black in roulette or simply cashing out after a short period.
The individual exchanges the chips for a casino check, wire transfer, or “clean” cash, claiming it as gambling winnings, thus providing a legitimate source for the funds, as casinos issue receipts or tax forms that can be used to justify the money’s origin.
To avoid detection, the “dirty” cash may also be divided into smaller amounts and used to bet at multiple casinos or through repeated visits to a single casino over time, staying below reporting thresholds.
Casinos must report single cash transactions exceeding P5 million or its equivalent in foreign currency to the AMLC.
Launderers frequently employ “mules” or intermediaries to purchase chips or gamble on their behalf, further distancing themselves from the dirty money.
In some cases, the funds can be deposited into a casino account, transferred internationally to casinos in jurisdictions with lax regulations, and then withdrawn as “clean” money.
Casinos are attractive for laundering because they’re cash-intensive businesses, and despite safeguards, gaps in enforcement and unregulated casinos remain.
