DOMINICA CONVICTS BULK CASH SMUGGLER IN SOVIET-STYLE SHOW TRIAL

Government-controlled media in the Commonwealth of Dominica has gone to great pains to showcase what has been referred to as the first money laundering conviction under the new law, the amendments to the Money Laundering Prevention Act, Chapter 73.

Cash in the amount of €162,000 was reportedly seized by the Anti-Crime Task Force on July 4, 2021, and three charges of money laundering were filed against the EDWIN DANIEL REYES GARCIA, said to be a Venezuelan national. The defendant pled guilty to a single count of money laundering and was sentenced to two years in jail.

The money seized was ordered forfeited, and paid into a government account. Defendant Reyes Garcia was ordered deported at the close of his sentence.There has been no investigation into who Reyes Garcia was bulk cash smuggling the money for, where he intended to deposit it, and where obtained it, and from whom. Specifically, rumors that Dominica's Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, was involved in a criminal conspiracy linked to the seized cash have not been investigated, and the case abruptly closed.

In truth and in fact, the case was a show trial in the best Communist Chinese or Soviet Russia sense of the term. The individuals whom Reyes Garcia was working for were never named; the purpose of the case was solely to give the Government of Dominica a conviction to publicly use as authority for the proposition that the Rule of Law is observed in Dominica. Nothing could be further from the truth.