Asset Recovery Interagency Network of the Caribbean drafting legal frameworks to go after dirty money

Last Updated on Wednesday, 15 July 2026, 22:29 by Denis Chabrol

As the Asset Recovery Interagency Network of the Caribbean (ARIN-CARIB) hammers out region-wide legal frameworks to go after dirty money, Guyana’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shalimar Hack on Wednesday said the laws must provide for cooperation among agencies.

“lnter-agency cooperation expedites investigations. Our laws must make provision for this. Once all the players have the relevant laws, have an understanding of the law and the importance of the interagency approach as well as the importance of the fight against the proceeds of transnational crimes, we will be able to maintain the fight
against the proceeds of crime,” Ms Hack, who is in ARIN-CARIB’s President for 2026, told the opening of this year’s annual general meeting and steering group meeting.

Being held under the theme “”From Tracing to Transformation: Building An Asset Recovery-Ready Caribbean”, the meetings also heard Ms Hack emphasis the importance of the Caribbean-wide interagency network for cooperation to maintain law and order in jurisdictions and the region at large.

The DPP said securing a criminal conviction was not alone sufficient because if the criminal justice system undermines the financial structures of organised crime, “we have not truly solved the problem.” She recommended that the Caribbean transform its approaches to successfully investigate transnational crime, trace assets and actively strip transnational organised crime networks of the proceeds of their crimes; and “even taking it a step further to convert these resources for positive utilization in our countries.”

Deputy Executive Director of the Regional Security System (RSS), Atlee Rodney said his Barbados-based organisation, which is ARIN-CARIB’s coordinating secretariat, was continuing to work closely with steering committee and strategic partners to strengthen the Caribbean’s legal framework for international cooperation.. They include the European Union’s Europe Latin America Programme of Assistance against Transnational Organised Crime and the Inter-American Development Bank. Among the priorities are continued strengthening of Caribbean countries and jurisdictions’ legislative and policy frameworks to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated criminal enterprises. “This work includes the development of a Model Agreement for Joint Investigations, the review of domestic legal frameworks governing international cooperation, and the enhancement of mutual legal assistance mechanisms to facilitate the effective exchange of information and evidence across jurisdictions,:” said Mr Rodney, a former Police Commissioner of Antigua and Barbuda.