The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas is a popular destination for Canadian fraudsters, a global security expert has warned, revealing that he has proposed a plan to recover millions this nation has lost to corruption.

Juval Aviv, former Israeli counter-intelligence officer, and founder and chief executive of New York-based security consulting company, Interfor, told Tribune Business: “I do a lot of work in Canada. Maybe you guys don’t know but Canadian fraudsters put their money in The Bahamas. They don’t go anywhere else, in a hope maybe to move here and live here in the future.”

“Right now The Bahamas is on some lists that are not favourable. Serious investors are not going to come to The Bahamas. We are already a vendor of the EU. We are going to third world countries to really help them to come up to a level that the EU can loan them money.”

Mr Aviv, a speaker at an Insurance Management cyber security and risk management seminar, added that the fight against corruption and other forms of financial crime must be led from the top by national leaders.

Referring to nations unable to access European Union (EU) grants and other forms of funding, he added: “Today, those countries cannot borrow money anywhere. One of the goals is to really clean it up so we can have a favourable rating for countries to trust us and come and do some business here.

“It has to start with the top. You cannot do it with mid-level officials. They don’t have the authority to make decisions. They need to know that the top guy is interested in it. That if he’s criticising the old regime he shouldn’t fall for the same type of activity.”

Mr Aviv said he has presented the government with a proposal to fight corruption. “With the proposal that I gave the government I want to build a reputation for The Bahamas,” he added.

“If you have fraud in mind, go to some other islands. We mean business. You’re not going to be able to do it. If you have done it in the past we are going to crack down. We want to build a reputation with people who really want to invest money.”

Mr Aviv continued: “The programme is really about coming in, looking at the system, looking at the previous government and their activities. We know from rumours and stories that money has left The Bahamas into private pockets. The programme is going after that money, recovering it and bringing it back home. That could make a big change in the Government’s budget.

“We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s not just small amounts. The second thing is to really work on prevention. What do we do in systems we can introduce, teach law enforcement here, teach the police, teach other law enforcement agencies how to deal with those type of frauds and prevention.

“The key is prevention. In other countries we also look at the legal area. We found out in some other countries that judges accepted bribes. It just needs the will of the Government to do it.”