Sir, – The Ugandan government (Home News, November 6th) could do worse than look to its smaller East African neighbour Seychelles which has already established a Criminal Assets Bureau called the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), based on the Irish CAB model.
The Seychelles FIU was developed with the patronage of Dr Garret FitzGerald and the expertise of Cork prosecutor Barry Galvin in 2008 with a team of former Defence Force and Garda officers, and has established itself as the best of breed in the region.
It investigates detections of international money laundering, arms proliferation, bribery, corruption and other proceeds derived from serious criminal conduct. Since 2009, it has also engaged in targeting the organisers of Somali piracy in the Indian Ocean, working closely with Interpol and a number of EU piracy prosecuting partners. As recently as November 4th, it was instrumental in obtaining the release of two Seychellois hostages who had been abducted and held in Somalia for over a year.
The adapted CAB model has been so successful in Seychelles that it is being strongly considered as a legislative and implementation template for a roll-out of strengthened FIU capacity in the entire East African region in 2013 which is being funded by the EU under the MASE programme. – Yours, etc,